Today's Stichomancy for Akira Kurosawa

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him, Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

'So thy surviving husband shall remain The scornful mark of every open eye; Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain, Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy: And thou, the author of their obloquy, Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes, And sung by children in succeeding times.

'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend: The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac:

himself the airs of a fine artist.

"Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six sous' worth of color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll say that. You are steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business in your way."

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"

"No."

"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden time they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.'

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

became a widower. He never had any children. Gapka has children and they run about the court-yard. Ivan Ivanovitch always gives each of them a cake, or a slice of melon, or a pear.

Gapka carries the keys of the storerooms and cellars; but the key of the large chest which stands in his bedroom, and that of the centre storeroom, Ivan Ivanovitch keeps himself; Gapka is a healthy girl, with ruddy cheeks and calves, and goes about in coarse cloth garments.

And what a pious man is Ivan Ivanovitch! Every Sunday he dons his pelisse and goes to church. On entering, he bows on all sides, generally stations himself in the choir, and sings a very good bass. When the service is over, Ivan Ivanovitch cannot refrain from passing

Taras Bulba and Other Tales

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 Heart of the West by O. Henry:

half-inch rope and a live-oak tree.

These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette paper in his hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the storekeeper. Sam stood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on his pink madras shirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the only pair of tan shoes within a forty-mile radius. His offence had been serious, and he was divided between humble apology and admiration for the beauty of his raiment. He had allowed the ranch stock of "smoking" to become exhausted.

"I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter, boys," he explained. "But it happened to be catterdges."

Heart of the West