| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: v. 34. Who.] David.
v. 39. He.] Trajan. See Purgatory, Canto X. 68.
v. 44. He next.] Hezekiah.
v. 50. 'The other following.] Constantine. There is no passage
in which Dante's opinion of the evil; that had arisen from the
mixture of the civil with the ecclesiastical power, is more
unequivocally declared.
v. 57. William.] William II, king of Sicily, at the latter part
of the twelfth century He was of the Norman line of sovereigns,
and obtained the appellation of "the Good" and, as the poet says
his loss was as much the subject of regret in his dominions, as
 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Phaedrus by Plato: who have spoken and written of these things, would rise up in judgment
against me, if out of complaisance I assented to you.
PHAEDRUS: Who are they, and where did you hear anything better than this?
SOCRATES: I am sure that I must have heard; but at this moment I do not
remember from whom; perhaps from Sappho the fair, or Anacreon the wise; or,
possibly, from a prose writer. Why do I say so? Why, because I perceive
that my bosom is full, and that I could make another speech as good as that
of Lysias, and different. Now I am certain that this is not an invention
of my own, who am well aware that I know nothing, and therefore I can only
infer that I have been filled through the ears, like a pitcher, from the
waters of another, though I have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was
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