The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still, 110
'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'
I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
'What is that noise?'
The Waste Land |
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 Hiero by Xenophon: the fair within him yet more fair who is to-day a prince and was but
yesterday a private citizen.[13] Again, it is a prouder satisfaction
doubtless to hold debate with those who are preferred to us in honour
than with people on an equal footing with ourselves.
[12] Lit. "attends the footsteps of the princely ruler." Cf. "Cyrop."
II. i. 23, Plat. "Laws," 667 B, for a similar metaphorical use of
the word.
[13] {to arkhein}, "his princely power makes him more noble as a man,
and we behold him fairer exercising rule than when he functioned
as a common citizen." Reading {kallio}, or if {edion}, transl. "we
feast our eyes more greedily upon him."
|