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The Father, enthroned in midnight cloud, hurls from a flashing righthand his lightning: the whole
Earth trembles at the shook; the beasts are fled and human
Hearts are felled in panic throughout the nations.
Ipse Pater media nimborum in nocte corusca
fulmina molitur dextra: quo maxima motu
terra tremit; fugere ferae et mortalia corda
per gentis humilis stravit pavor.
Virgil, Georgics, Book I, lines 328-331, trans. C. Day Lewis, The Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, Doubleday, New York, 1964.
PLACE: Italy
TIME: Sometime before Virgil's day (ca. 70 B.C.)
CIRCUMSTANCE: A storm; thunder.
Then the truculent raven full-throated announces rain
As she stalks alone on the dry sand.
Even at night can girls, spinning their wool, be aware
That a storm approaches, for then they behold in the burning lamp
The oil sputter and crumbly mould collect on the wick.
Tum cornix plena pluviam vocat improba voce
et sola in sicca seculum spatiatur harena.
Ne nocturna quidem. carpentes pensa puellae
nescivere hiemen, testa cum ardente viderent
scintillare oleum et putris concrescere fungos.
Virgil, Georgics, Book I, lines 388-392, trans. C. Day Lewis, The Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, Anchor, Doubleday, New York, 1964.
PLACE: Italy
TIME: Sometime before Virgil's day (ca. 70 B.C.)
CIRCUMSTANCE: Nature's signals before a storm..
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