‘Again I saw that the moisture in the _aer tenuis_ was as it were boiling above the surface of the earth, awakening the force of the earth and making fruits to grow.’[78] This happier scene is represented in the left lower quadrant of Plate IX. Here the beneficent fertilizing influence is falling on trees and herbs and the happy husbandmen are reaping its results. [Illustration: From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 224 r Plate XIII. THE LAST JUDGEMENT AND FATE OF THE ELEMENTS] The main outline of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ is, we believe, borrowed from the work of Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, _De mundi universitate libri duo sive megacosmus et microcosmus_.[79] In this composition by a teacher at the cathedral school of Chartres,[80] the gods and goddesses of the classical pantheon flit across the stage, for all the world as though the writer were a pagan, and the work might be thought to be the last one from which our pious authoress would borrow. The _De mundi universitate_ is alternately in prose and verse and betrays an acquaintance with the classics very rare at its date. ‘The rhythm of the hexameters is clearly that of Lucan, while the vocabulary is mainly of Ovid.’[81] The mythology is founded mainly on the _Timaeus_. The eternal _seminaria_ of created things are mentioned, and it has been conjectured that the work exhibits traces of the influence of Lucretius,[82] but the general line of thought is clearly related to Neoplatonic literature. Thus the _anima universalis_ of Neoplatonic writings can be identified with the _Nous_ or _Noys_ of Bernard. This principle is contrasted with primordial matter or _Hyle_. The parallel character of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ and the _De mundi universitate_ can be illustrated by a few extracts from the latter. It will be seen that although the general setting is changed, yet Hildegard’s figure of the spirit of the macrocosm is to be identified with Bernard’s _Noys_. _Hyle_, on the other hand, becomes in Hildegard’s plan the monstrous form, the emblem of brute matter, on which the spirit of the universe tramples. [Illustration: From BIBL. NAT. MS. LAT. 5543 fo. 136 r Plate XIV. DIAGRAM OF THE RELATION OF HUMAN AND COSMIC PHENOMENA IXth Century] ‘In huius operis primo libro qui Megacosmus dicitur, id est maior mundus, Natura ad Noym, id est Dei providentiam, de primae materiae, id est hyles, confusione querimoniam quasi cum lacrimis agit et ut mundus pulchrius petit. Noys igitur eius mota precibus petitioni libenter annuit et ita quatuor elementa ab invicem seiungit. Novem ierarchias angelorum in coelo ponit. stellas in firmamento figit. signa disponit. sub signis orbes septem planetarum currere facit. quatuor ventos cardinales sibi invicem opponit. Sequitur genesis animantium et terrae situs medius....