The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: wisest men; in no other was she herself, the philosopher and warrior
goddess, so likely to have votaries. And there you dwelt as became the
children of the gods, excelling all men in virtue, and many famous actions
are recorded of you. The most famous of them all was the overthrow of the
island of Atlantis. This great island lay over against the Pillars of
Heracles, in extent greater than Libya and Asia put together, and was the
passage to other islands and to a great ocean of which the Mediterranean
sea was only the harbour; and within the Pillars the empire of Atlantis
reached in Europe to Tyrrhenia and in Libya to Egypt. This mighty power
was arrayed against Egypt and Hellas and all the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. Then your city did bravely, and won renown over the whole
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: those days, there would have been no chaining or mutilation of the gods, or
other violence, but peace and sweetness, as there is now in heaven, since
the rule of Love began. Love is young and also tender; he ought to have a
poet like Homer to describe his tenderness, as Homer says of Ate, that she
is a goddess and tender:--
'Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps,
Not on the ground but on the heads of men:'
herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness,--that she walks not upon
the hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the
tenderness of Love; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon the
skulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of
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