The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: HIPPIAS: Where is that?
SOCRATES: Where he says,--
'I will not think about bloody war until the son of warlike Priam,
illustrious Hector, comes to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons,
slaughtering the Argives, and burning the ships with fire; and about my
tent and dark ship, I suspect that Hector, although eager for the battle,
will nevertheless stay his hand.'
Now, do you really think, Hippias, that the son of Thetis, who had been the
pupil of the sage Cheiron, had such a bad memory, or would have carried the
art of lying to such an extent (when he had been assailing liars in the
most violent terms only the instant before) as to say to Odysseus that he
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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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble.
To another work of anthropo-logy I am indebted in general, one which has
influenced our generation profoundly; I mean _The Golden Bough_; I have
used especially the two volumes _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_. Anyone who is
acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem
certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
<1> Macmillan] Cambridge.
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:7.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. _V. Tristan und Isolde_, i, verses 5-8.
 The Waste Land |