| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
 Anabasis |
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 Charmides by Plato: disgrace at all. For things nobly and usefully made he called works; and
such makings he called workings, and doings; and he must be supposed to
have called such things only man's proper business, and what is hurtful,
not his business: and in that sense Hesiod, and any other wise man, may be
reasonably supposed to call him wise who does his own work.
O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I pretty well
knew that you would call that which is proper to a man, and that which is
his own, good; and that the makings (Greek) of the good you would call
doings (Greek), for I am no stranger to the endless distinctions which
Prodicus draws about names. Now I have no objection to your giving names
any signification which you please, if you will only tell me what you mean
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