Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: brought your opponent to an agreement. For just as in the law courts, if
two witnesses testify to the same fact, one of whom seems to be an honest
fellow and the other a rogue, the testimony of the rogue often has the
contrary effect on the judges' minds to what he intended, while the same
evidence if given by the honest man at once strikes them as perfectly true.
And probably the audience have something of the same feeling about yourself
and Prodicus; they think him a Sophist and a braggart, and regard you as a
gentleman of courtesy and worth. For they do not pay attention to the
argument so much as to the character of the speaker.
But truly, Socrates, said Erasistratus, though you may be joking, Critias
does seem to me to be saying something which is of weight.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: have used this one gallantly; never have I seen Indians make a
better fight. And so that is Otomie, Montezuma's daughter and your
wife, still handsome and royal, I see. Lord! Lord! it is many
years ago, and yet it seems but yesterday that I saw her father
die, a Christian-hearted man, though no Christian, and one whom we
dealt ill with. May God forgive us all! Well, Madam, none can say
that YOU have a Christian heart. If a certain tale that I have
heard of what passed yonder, some three nights since, is true. But
we will speak no more of it, for the savage blood will show, and
you are pardoned for your husband's sake who saved my comrades from
the sacrifice.'
 Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: the city; with what moderation did they order the war against the tyrants
in Eleusis, and in a manner how unlike what the other Hellenes expected!
And the reason of this gentleness was the veritable tie of blood, which
created among them a friendship as of kinsmen, faithful not in word only,
but in deed. And we ought also to remember those who then fell by one
another's hands, and on such occasions as these to reconcile them with
sacrifices and prayers, praying to those who have power over them, that
they may be reconciled even as we are reconciled. For they did not attack
one another out of malice or enmity, but they were unfortunate. And that
such was the fact we ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with
them, and have mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have
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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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its
slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised
himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty
bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to
develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary,
instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and
deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He
becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than
population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the
bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in
society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society
 The Communist Manifesto |
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