| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Take hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither
The Theban commons. With the god's good help
Success is sure; 'tis ruin if we fail.
[Exeunt OEDIPUS and CREON]
PRIEST
Come, children, let us hence; these gracious words
Forestall the very purpose of our suit.
And may the god who sent this oracle
Save us withal and rid us of this pest.
[Exeunt PRIEST and SUPPLIANTS]
CHORUS
Oedipus Trilogy |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: Lyc. (turning to his son). Do you hear that, my son?
That he does (Socrates answered for the boy), and he puts the precept
into practice also; to judge, at any rate, from his behaviour. When he
had set his heart on carrying off the palm of victory in the
pankration, he took you into his counsel;[10] and will again take
counsel to discover the fittest friend to aid him in his high
endeavour,[11] and with this friend associate.
[10] It looks as if something had been lost intimating that Autolycus
would have need of some one to instruct him in spiritual things.
For attempts to fill up the lacuna see Schenkl.
[11] Or, "these high pursuits."
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: And by the gods, whom thou doest invocate,
By the dead ghost of thy deceased sire,
By thy right hand and by thy burning love,
Take pity on poor Estrild's wretched thrall.
CORINEIUS.
Hath Locrine then forgot his Gwendoline,
That thus he courts the Scithian's paramour?
What, are the words of Brute so soon forgot?
Are my deserts so quickly out of mind?
Have I been faithful to thy sire now dead,
Have I protected thee from Humber's hands,
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: We do not read that he refunded the treasures: but the Egyptians
surnamed him Soter, the Saviour; and on the whole he deserved the title.
Instead of the wretched misrule and slavery of the conquering Persian
dynasty, they had at least law and order, reviving commerce, and a
system of administration, we are told (I confess to speaking here quite
at second-hand), especially adapted to the peculiar caste-society, and
the religious prejudices of Egypt. But Ptolemy's political genius went
beyond such merely material and Warburtonian care for the conservation
of body and goods of his subjects. He effected with complete success a
feat which has been attempted, before and since, by very many princes
and potentates, but has always, except in Ptolemy's case, proved
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