Today's Stichomancy for Joel Grey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert:

naivete, pronounced these words:

"I ask my lord to give me, placed upon a charger, the head of--" She hesitated, as if not certain of the name; then said: "The head of Iaokanann!"

The tetrarch sank back in his chair as if stunned.

He had bound himself by his promise to her; and the people awaited his next movement. But the death that night of some conspicuous man that had been predicted to him by Phanuel,--what if, by bringing it upon another, he could avert it from himself, thought Antipas. If Iaokanann was in very truth the Elias so much talked of, he would have power to protect himself; and if he were only an ordinary man, his murder was

Herodias

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato:

of knowledge which brings happiness is the knowledge of good and evil. To this Critias replies that the science or knowledge of good and evil, and all the other sciences, are regulated by the higher science or knowledge of knowledge. Socrates replies by again dividing the abstract from the concrete, and asks how this knowledge conduces to happiness in the same definite way in which medicine conduces to health.

And now, after making all these concessions, which are really inadmissible, we are still as far as ever from ascertaining the nature of temperance, which Charmides has already discovered, and had therefore better rest in the knowledge that the more temperate he is the happier he will be, and not trouble himself with the speculations of Socrates.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tanach:

Ecclesiastes 9: 15 now there was found in it a man poor and wise, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.

Ecclesiastes 9: 16 Then said I: 'Wisdom is better than strength; nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.'

Ecclesiastes 9: 17 The words of the wise spoken in quiet are more acceptable than the cry of a ruler among fools.

Ecclesiastes 9: 18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good.

Ecclesiastes 10: 1 Dead flies make the ointment of the perfumer fetid and putrid; so doth a little folly outweigh wisdom and honour.

Ecclesiastes 10: 2 A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; but a fool's understanding at his left.

Ecclesiastes 10: 3 Yea also, when a fool walketh by the way, his understanding faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.

Ecclesiastes 10: 4 If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for gentleness allayeth great offences.

Ecclesiastes 10: 5 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, like an error which proceedeth from a ruler:

Ecclesiastes 10: 6 Folly is set on great heights, and the rich sit in low place.

Ecclesiastes 10: 7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.

The Tanach

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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

the Lateran by Constantine to Silvester, of which Dante himself seems to imply a doubt, in his treatise "De Monarchia." - "Ergo scindere Imperium, Imperatori non licet. Si ergo aliquae, dignitates per Constantinum essent alienatae, (ut dicunt) ab Imperio," &c. l. iii. The gift is by Ariosto very humorously placed in the moon, among the things lost or abused on earth. Di varj fiori, &c. O. F. c. xxxiv. st. 80.

Milton has translated both this passage and that in the text. Prose works, vol. i. p. 11. ed. 1753.

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)