| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: other slight addition.
What is that? said Critias.
If he has a noble soul; and being of your house, Critias, he may be
expected to have this.
He is as fair and good within, as he is without, replied Critias.
Then, before we see his body, should we not ask him to show us his soul,
naked and undisguised? he is just of an age at which he will like to talk.
That he will, said Critias, and I can tell you that he is a philosopher
already, and also a considerable poet, not in his own opinion only, but in
that of others.
That, my dear Critias, I replied, is a distinction which has long been in
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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 Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: called in agony upon the Virgin Mother, who took compassion on
him and released him. He sought a village church, and to
priest after priest confessed his sin, without obtaining
absolution, until finally he had recourse to the Pope. But the
holy father, horrified at the enormity of his misdoing,
declared that guilt such as his could never be remitted sooner
should the staff in his hand grow green and blossom. "Then
Tannhauser, full of despair and with his soul darkened, went
away, and returned to the only asylum open to him, the
Venusberg. But lo! three days after he had gone, Pope Urban
discovered that his pastoral staff had put forth buds and had
Myths and Myth-Makers |
