the body, as it is first in composition. And is called simple, not for
an element is simple without any composition, but for it hath no parts
that compound it, that be diverse in kind and in number as some
medlied bodies have: as it fareth in metals of the which some parts be
diverse; for some part is air, and some is earth. But each part of
fire is fire, and so of others. Elements are four, and so there are
four qualities of elements, of the which every body is composed and
made as of matter. The four elements are Earth, Water, Fire, and Air,
of the which each hath his proper qualities. Four be called the first
and principal qualities, that is, hot, cold, dry, and moist: they are
called the first qualities because they slide first from the elements
into the things that be made of elements. Two of these qualities are
called Active--heat and coldness. The others are dry and wetness and
are called Passive.

The Rainbow is impression gendered in an hollow cloud and dewy,
disposed to rain in endless many gutters, as it were shining in a
mirror, and is shapen as a bow, and sheweth divers colours, and is
gendered by the beams of the sun or of the moon. And is but seldom
gendered by beams of the moon, no more but twice in fifty years, as
Aristotle saith. In the rainbow by cause of its clearness be seen
divers forms, kinds, and shapes that be contrary. Therefore the bow
seemeth coloured, for, as Bede saith, it taketh colour of the four
elements. For therein, as it were in any mirror, shineth figures and
shapes and kinds of elements. For of fire he taketh red colour in the
overmost part, and of earth green in the nethermost, and of the air a
manner of brown colour, and of water somedeal blue in the middle. And
first is red colour, that cometh out of a light beam, that touches the
outer part of the roundness of the cloud: then is a middle colour
somedeal blue, as the quality asketh, that hath mastery in the vapour,