Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.

Besides, full often also out at sea

A blackest thunderhead, like cataract

Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away

Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves

Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain

The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts

And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed

Tremendously with fires and winds, that even

Back on the lands the people shudder round

And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,

The storm must be conceived as o'er our head

Towering most high; for never would the clouds

O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,

Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,

To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,

As on they come, engulf with rain so vast

As thus to make the rivers overflow

And fields to float, if ether were not thus

Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,

Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires—

Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.

For, verily, I've taught thee even now

How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable

Of fiery exhalations, and they must

From off the sunbeams and the heat of these

Take many still. And so, when that same wind

(Which, haply, into one region of the sky

Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same

The many fiery seeds, and with that fire

Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,

O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,

Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round

In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside

In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.

For in a two-fold manner is that wind

Enkindled all: it trembles into heat

Both by its own velocity and by

Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when

The energy of wind is heated through

And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped

Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,

Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly

Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash

Leaps onward, lumining with forky light

All places round. And followeth anon

A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,

As if asunder burst, seem from on high

To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake

Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies

Run the far rumblings. For at such a time

Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,

And roused are the roarings,—from which shock

Comes such resounding and abounding rain,

That all the murky ether seems to turn

Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,

To summon the fields back to primeval floods:

So big the rains that be sent down on men

By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,

What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt

That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times

The force of wind, excited from without,

Smiteth into a cloud already hot

With a ripe thunderbolt. And when that wind

Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith

Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call,

Even with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.

The same thing haps toward every other side

Whither that force hath swept. It happens, too,

That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth

Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space

Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along,—

Losing some larger bodies which cannot

Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air,—

And, scraping together out of air itself

Some smaller bodies, carries them along,

And these, commingling, by their flight make fire:

Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball

Grows hot upon its aery course, the while

It loseth many bodies of stark cold

And taketh into itself along the air

New particles of fire. It happens, too,

That force of blow itself arouses fire,

When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth

Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain—

No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke

'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff

Can stream together from out the very wind

And, simultaneously, from out that thing

Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies

The fire when with the steel we hack the stone;

Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold,

Rush the less speedily together there

Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.

And therefore, thuswise must an object too

Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply

'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.

Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed

As altogether and entirely cold—

That force which is discharged from on high

With such stupendous power; but if 'tis not

Upon its course already kindled with fire,

It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.

And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt

Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift

Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because

Their roused force itself collects itself

First always in the clouds, and then prepares

For the huge effort of their going-forth;

Next, when the cloud no longer can retain

The increment of their fierce impetus,

Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies

With impetus so wondrous, like to shots

Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults.

Note, too, this force consists of elements

Both small and smooth, nor is there aught that can

With ease resist such nature. For it darts

Between and enters through the pores of things;

And so it never falters in delay

Despite innumerable collisions, but

Flies shooting onward with a swift elan.

Next, since by nature always every weight

Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then

And that elan is still more wild and dread,

When, verily, to weight are added blows,

So that more madly and more fiercely then

The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all

That blocks its path, following on its way.

Then, too, because it comes along, along

With one continuing elan, it must

Take on velocity anew, anew,

Which still increases as it goes, and ever

Augments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow

Gives larger vigour; for it forces all,

All of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep

In a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,—

Casting them one by other, as they roll,

Into that onward course. Again, perchance,

In coming along, it pulls from out the air

Some certain bodies, which by their own blows

Enkindle its velocity. And, lo,

It comes through objects leaving them unharmed,

It goes through many things and leaves them whole,

Because the liquid fire flieth along

Athrough their pores. And much it does transfix,

When these primordial atoms of the bolt

Have fallen upon the atoms of these things

Precisely where the intertwined atoms

Are held together. And, further, easily

Brass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold,

Because its force is so minutely made

Of tiny parts and elements so smooth

That easily they wind their way within,

And, when once in, quickly unbind all knots

And loosen all the bonds of union there.

And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven,

The house so studded with the glittering stars,

And the whole earth around—most too in spring

When flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo,

In the cold season is there lack of fire,

And winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds

Have not so dense a bulk. But when, indeed,

The seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain,

The divers causes of the thunderbolt