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

Then all concur; for then both cold and heat

Are mixed in the cross-seas of the year,

So that a discord rises among things

And air in vast tumultuosity

Billows, infuriate with the fires and winds—

Of which the both are needed by the cloud

For fabrication of the thunderbolt.

For the first part of heat and last of cold

Is the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike

Do battle one with other, and, when mixed,

Tumultuously rage. And when rolls round

The latest heat mixed with the earliest chill—

The time which bears the name of autumn—then

Likewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.

On this account these seasons of the year

Are nominated "cross-seas."—And no marvel

If in those times the thunderbolts prevail

And storms are roused turbulent in heaven,

Since then both sides in dubious warfare rage

Tumultuously, the one with flames, the other

With winds and with waters mixed with winds.

This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through

The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;

O this it is to mark by what blind force

It maketh each effect, and not, O not

To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,

Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods,

Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,

Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how

Through walled places it hath wound its way,

Or, after proving its dominion there,

How it hath speeded forth from thence amain,

Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill

From out high heaven. But if Jupiter

And other gods shake those refulgent vaults

With dread reverberations and hurl fire

Whither it pleases each, why smite they not

Mortals of reckless and revolting crimes,

That such may pant from a transpierced breast

Forth flames of the red levin—unto men

A drastic lesson?—why is rather he—

O he self-conscious of no foul offence—

Involved in flames, though innocent, and clasped

Up-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?

Nay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes,

And spend themselves in vain?—perchance, even so

To exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?

Why suffer they the Father's javelin

To be so blunted on the earth? And why

Doth he himself allow it, nor spare the same

Even for his enemies? O why most oft

Aims he at lofty places? Why behold we

Marks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?

Then for what reason shoots he at the sea?—

What sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine

And floating fields of foam been guilty of?

Besides, if 'tis his will that we beware

Against the lightning-stroke, why feareth he

To grant us power for to behold the shot?

And, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us,

Quite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he

Off in yon quarter, so that we may shun?

Why rouseth he beforehand darkling air

And the far din and rumblings? And O how

Canst thou believe he shoots at one same time

Into diverse directions? Or darest thou

Contend that never hath it come to pass

That divers strokes have happened at one time?

But oft and often hath it come to pass,

And often still it must, that, even as showers

And rains o'er many regions fall, so too

Dart many thunderbolts at one same time.

Again, why never hurtles Jupiter

A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad

Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?

Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds

Have come thereunder, then into the same

Descend in person, that from thence he may

Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?

And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt

Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods

And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks

The well-wrought idols of divinities,

And robs of glory his own images

By wound of violence?

But to return apace,

Easy it is from these same facts to know

In just what wise those things (which from their sort

The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down,

Discharged from on high, upon the seas.

For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends

Upon the seas a column, as if pushed,

Round which the surges seethe, tremendously

Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er

Of ships are caught within that tumult then

Come into extreme peril, dashed along.

This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force

Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs

That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky

Upon the seas pushed downward—gradually,

As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved

By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened

Far to the waves. And when the force of wind

Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes

Down on the seas, and starts among the waves

A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl

Descends and downward draws along with it

That cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever

'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main

That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then

Plunges its whole self into the waters there

And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,

Constraining it to seethe. It happens too

That very vortex of the wind involves

Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air

The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,

The "bellows" pushed from heaven. And when this shape

Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,

It belches forth immeasurable might

Of whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed

At most but rarely, and on land the hills

Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there

On the broad prospect of the level main

Along the free horizons.

Into being

The clouds condense, when in this upper space

Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly,

As round they flew, unnumbered particles—

World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked

With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,

The one on other caught. These particles

First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,

These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock

And grow by their conjoining, and by winds

Are borne along, along, until collects

The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer

The mountain summits neighbour to the sky,

The more unceasingly their far crags smoke

With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because

When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes

Can there behold them (tenuous as they be),

The carrier-winds will drive them up and on

Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;

And then at last it happens, when they be

In vaster throng upgathered, that they can

By this very condensation lie revealed,

And that at same time they are seen to surge

From very vertex of the mountain up

Into far ether. For very fact and feeling,

As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear

That windy are those upward regions free.

Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,

When in they take the clinging moisture, prove

That nature lifts from over all the sea

Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more

'Tis manifest that many particles

Even from the salt upheavings of the main

Can rise together to augment the bulk

Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain

Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,

As well as from the land itself, we see

Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath

Are forced out from them and borne aloft,

To curtain heaven with their murk, and make,

By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.