| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: fair youth who was being tempted, but not by a lover; and this was the
point: he ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather
than the lover.
SOCRATES: O that is noble of him! I wish that he would say the poor man
rather than the rich, and the old man rather than the young one;--then he
would meet the case of me and of many a man; his words would be quite
refreshing, and he would be a public benefactor. For my part, I do so long
to hear his speech, that if you walk all the way to Megara, and when you
have reached the wall come back, as Herodicus recommends, without going in,
I will keep you company.
PHAEDRUS: What do you mean, my good Socrates? How can you imagine that my
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.
KATHERINA.
Would Katherine had never seen him though!
[Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others.]
BAPTISTA.
Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,
For such an injury would vex a very saint;
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.
The Taming of the Shrew |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: chill the blood, and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man, to
hear Mr. Sevier talk. Nature, or his cruel habits, had given to
his face an expression of unusual savageness, even for a slave-
driver. Tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short, and nearly
every sentence that escaped their compressed grating, was
commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity. His
presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of
blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice,
his death was deplored by no one outside his own house--if indeed
it was deplored there; it was regarded by the slaves as a
merciful interposition of Providence. Never went there a man to
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 The Koran: Forbidden to you is that which dies of itself, and blood, and the
flesh of swine, and that which is devoted to other than God, and the
strangled and the knocked down, and that which falls down, and the
gored, and what wild beasts have eaten- except what ye slaughter in
time- and what is sacrificed to idols, and dividing carcases by
arrows.
To-day shall those who disbelieve in your religion despair; do ye
not then fear them, but fear me- To-day is perfected for you your
religion, and fulfilled upon you is my favour, and I am pleased for
you to have Islam for a religion. But he who is forced by hunger,
not inclined wilfully to sin, verily, God is forgiving, compassionate.
The Koran |
