| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: THYRSIS
"Here is a hearth, and resinous logs, here fire
Unstinted, and doors black with ceaseless smoke.
Here heed we Boreas' icy breath as much
As the wolf heeds the number of the flock,
Or furious rivers their restraining banks."
CORYDON
"The junipers and prickly chestnuts stand,
And 'neath each tree lie strewn their several fruits,
Now the whole world is smiling, but if fair
Alexis from these hill-slopes should away,
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: shall need will be a seven-sofa'd chamber,[36] where I can warm to
work,[37] just like the lad here who has found this room quite ample
for the purpose. And in winter I shall do gymnastics[38] under cover,
or when the weather is broiling under shade. . . . But what is it you
keep on laughing at--the wish on my part to reduce to moderate size a
paunch a trifle too rotund? Is that the source of merriment?[39]
Perhaps you are not aware, my friends, that Charmides--yes! he there--
caught me only the other morning in the act of dancing?
[31] "Bearing a weighty and serious brow."
[32] "Like your runner of the mile race." Cf. Plat. "Prot." 335 E.
[33] Or, "resolute exercise of the whole body." See Aristot. "Pol."
The Symposium |
