| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: is said to be here employed in allusion to the quotation from the
'Margites' which Socrates has just made; but it is not used in the sense
which it has in Homer.) to make such a request; a man must be very careful
lest he pray for evil under the idea that he is asking for good, when
shortly after he may have to recall his prayer, and, as you were saying,
demand the opposite of what he at first requested.
SOCRATES: And was not the poet whose words I originally quoted wiser than
we are, when he bade us (pray God) to defend us from evil even though we
asked for it?
ALCIBIADES: I believe that you are right.
SOCRATES: The Lacedaemonians, too, whether from admiration of the poet or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: Ishmael that he gat upon Hagar his chamberer. And when Isaac his
son was eight days old, Abraham his father let him be circumcised,
and Ishmael with him that was fourteen year old: wherefore the
Jews that come of Isaac's line be circumcised the eighth day, and
the Saracens that come of Ishmael's line be circumcised when they
be fourteen year of age.
And ye shall understand, that within the Dead Sea, runneth the flom
Jordan, and there it dieth, for it runneth no further more, and
that is a place that is a mile from the church of Saint John the
Baptist toward the west, a little beneath the place where that
Christian men bathe them commonly. And a mile from flom Jordan is
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