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 Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare:

As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity. Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest; And the turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:-- 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could never bring myself to do."

"You have become a wearisome sort of person," commented Platon, and walked away to the window. "Ah, here comes Constantine," presently he added.

Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there came a couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all three were engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin's

Dead Souls

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche:

As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.

As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?

Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness of soul! As much as ye give to your friend, will I give even to my foe, and will not have become poorer thereby.

There is comradeship: may there be friendship!

Thus spake Zarathustra.

XV. THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he discovered the good

Thus Spake Zarathustra

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 A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:

And never seems to want to play.

Silly gardener! summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down.

Well now, and while the summer stays, To profit by these garden days O how much wiser you would be To play at Indian wars with me!

VIII Historical Associations

A Child's Garden of Verses