Latin — 1533, repaired
Non minoris potentiae sunt reliqua duo elementa, aqua videlicet et aer, nec in illis natura cessat mirabilia operari. Aquae enim tanta necessitas est, ut absque illa nullum animal degere possit, nulla herba, nec planta quaevis, citra aquae humectationem possit progerminare. Ipsa est prima seminaria omnium rerum virtus: animalium primo, quorum semen aqueum esse manifestum est; sed et fruticum et herbarum seminibus, etsi tenera sint, tam bene fieri tamen aqua necesse est, si secunda esse debeant: sive id fiat humore terrae imbibito, aut rore, vel pluvia, vel de industria adiecta aqua. Sola siquidem terra et aqua, ut Moses describit, producere animam viventem dicuntur: sed aqua duplicem productionem tribuit, natatilium videlicet in aquis, et volatilium in aere supra terram. Terrenarum etiam productionum ipsi aquae partim deberi, eadem scriptura testatur, dum inquit, quod post creationem virgulta et plantae non germinaverant, quia deus non pluerat super terram. Tanta eius elementi potestas est, ut nec spiritualis regeneratio fiat sine aqua, sicut ipse Christus ad Nicodemum testatus est.
Maxima quoque eius in religionis usu est, in expiationibus et purificationibus, nec minor quam ignis necessitas. Infinitae eius utilitates sunt, et usus multiplex, resque omnes ex eius potestate consistunt, ut quae generandi, alendi, augmentandi vim possidet. Inde Thales Milesius atque Hesiodus, aquam omnium rerum principium statuerunt, omniumque elementorum antiquissimum esse dixerunt atque potentissimum, quippe quod ceteris omnibus imperat. Nam, ut ait Plinius, terras devorat aqua: flammas necat: scandit in sublime, et nubium obtentu caelum sibi vendicat: eaedem cadentes omnium terra nascentium causa fiunt. Innumera sunt aquarum miracula a Plinio, Solino, multisque historicis descripta, de quarum mirabili virtute etiam meminit Ovidius in his versibus:
[†verse — see flag: Ovid, marvelous waters, Metamorphoses XV]
Refert praeterea Iosephus fluminis cuiusdam inter Arceam et Raphaneam Syriae urbes admirabilem naturam: qui cum pleno deferatur alveo, per integrum sabbathum, mox ceu obturatis fontibus deficiens, per sex integros dies siccum alvei sui praebet transitum, rursusque septimo die ignotis naturae causis ad priorem redit aquarum abundantiam; quaobrem incolae illum Sabbatheum nuncupant, ob sacrum Iudaeis septimum diem. Testaturque nobis evangelium de piscina Probatica, in quam post commotam ab angelo aquam, qui prior in illam descendisset, a quacunque aegritudine liberabatur.
Eadem vis atque potestas fuisse legitur fonti Ionidum Nympharum, qui in Eliorum agro apud Heracleam pagum iuxta Cytheron fluvium extabat: in quem qui aegroto corpore descendisset, abacto omni corporis vitio sanus et integer inde exiret. Narrat Pausanias esse in Lycaeo Arcadiae monte fontem qui Agria vocabatur, ad quem quoties regionis siccitas frugum interitum minaretur, ingressus Iovis Lycaei sacerdos, post immolatas hostias sacris precibus sacros veneratus latices, quercus ramum manu tenens, ad sacrati fontis summos latices demittebat: tunc commotis aquis vapor exinde in aera sursum latus in nubes coalescebat, concurrentibusque nebulis caelum omne obducebatur nubibus: quibus paulo post in pluviam resolutis, omnem regionem salubriter irrigabat. Verum de aquarum miraculis praeter ceteros autores multos scripsit Rufus Ephesius medicus miranda, et apud nullum alium, quod sciam, autorem reperta.
Superest de aere dicere. Hic spiritus est vitalis, cuncta permeans entia, omnibus vitam et consistentiam praebens, ligans, movens, et implens omnia. Hinc Hebraeorum doctores illum non inter elementa numerant, sed velut medium et glutinum, diversa insimul coniungens, et tanquam spiritum mundani instrumenti reboantem habent. Ipse enim proxime caelestium omnium influxus in se concipit, aliisque cum elementis tum mixtis singulis communicat, nihilo minus et rerum omnium cum naturalium tum artificialium, et sermonum quorumcunque species, velut divinum quoddam speculum in se suscipit et retinet: illasque secum ferens, corpora hominum et animalium, per poros ingrediens, tam in somno quam in vigilia illis imprimens, variorum mirabilium somniorum, praesagiorum et auspiciorum materiam praebet. Hinc etiam fieri dicunt, cur transiens locum, in quo homo occisus fuerit, vel cadaver recens absconditum, timore atque pavore concitatur: quia aer ibidem plenus horribilibus homicidii speciebus, spiritum hominis, dum una inspiratur, similibus speciebus afficit atque perturbat: unde contingit sequi pavorem: omne namque subito imprimens, naturam stupefacit.
Hinc multi philosophi arbitrati sunt, aerem causam esse somniorum, pluriumque aliarum animae impressionum, per delationem idolorum, seu similitudinum, seu specierum, quae deciduntur a rebus et sermonibus in ipso aere multiplicatis, quousque perveniant ad sensus, et tandem ad phantasiam et animam recipientis: videlicet quae soluta curis, nec impedita, species huiusmodi obviam expectans, ab illis informatur. Ipsae namque rerum species, licet ex propria natura deferantur ad sensus hominum et animalium, possunt tamen a caelo, dum sunt in aere, acquirere aliquam impressionem, ex qua una cum aptitudine a dispositione recipientis magis ferantur ad sensum unius, quam alterius. Atque hinc possibile est naturaliter, et procul omni superstitione, nullo alio spiritu mediante, hominem homini ad quamcunque, longissimam etiam vel incognitam distantiam et mansionem, brevissimo tempore posse nunciare mentis suae conceptum: et si tempus in quo istud fit, non possit praecise mensurari, tamen intra viginti quatuor horas id fieri omnino necesse est: et ego id facere novi, et saepius feci. Novit idem etiam, fecitque quondam abbas Tritemius.
Quo etiam idola quaedam, non modo spiritalia, sed etiam naturalia a rebus effluant, utputa per influxum quendam corporum a corporibus, atque in ipso aere convalescant, tum per lumen, tum per motum, tum ad visum, tum ad alios etiam sensus, se se nobis offerant et ostendant, et in nos mirabilia quandoque agant, probat docetque Plotinus. Et nos videmus quomodo austro flante aer densatur in tenues nubes, in quibus veluti in speculo reflectuntur imagines valde distantes castrorum, montium, equorum et hominum, et aliarum rerum, quae decedentibus nubibus mox evanescunt. Et in Meteoris prodit Aristoteles, quoniam in nube aeris concipiatur iris, quadam speculi similitudine. Et Albertus, effigies corporum, inquit, naturae vi in aere humido facile effingi possunt eodem modo, quo imagines rerum sunt in rebus. Et narrat Aristoteles, cuidam ex visus debilitate contigisse, ut speculum illi fieret propinquus aer, et radius visivus ad ipsum repercuteretur, nec posset penetrare: unde quorsum ibat, idolum suum adversa facie sibi praecedere arbitrabatur. Similiter speculorum quorundam artificio, quas volumus imagines in aere, etiam remote, extra specula producuntur: quae tunc imperiti homines videntes, daemonum, aut animarum umbras se videre putant, cum tamen non sint, nisi simulacra quaedam sibi ipsis cognata, acuitate omnis expertia. Et notum est, si quis in loco obscuro, et omnis luminis experte, nisi quod per minimum foramen solis radius alicubi ingrediatur, supposita illi papyro alba, aut speculo plano, videri in ea quaecunque foris a sole illustrata agantur.
Est aliud praestigium admirandum magis, ubi pictis certo artificio imaginibus, scriptisve litteris, quis nocte serena plenae lunae radiis opponat, quarum simulacris in aere multiplicatis, sursumque raptis, et una cum lunae radiis reflexis, alius quispiam rei conscius per longam distantiam videt, legit et agnoscit, in ipso disco, seu circulo lunae: quod equidem nunciandorum secretorum obsessis villis, et civitatibus utilissimum artificium est, olim a Pythagora factitatum, et hodie aliis adhuc, pariter et mihi non incognitum. Atque omnia haec, et multo plura, maioraque in ipsa aeris natura fundata sunt: et ex mathematica, atque optica, suas rationes habent. Et sicuti haec simulacra reflectuntur ad visum, ita nonnunquam etiam ad auditum, quod in echo manifestum est. Sed sunt illis occultiora artificia, quo quis etiam per remotam distantiam, audire et intelligere queat quid alius loquatur, vel susurret in occulto.
Ex aereo elemento sunt etiam venti: ipsi enim nihil aliud sunt, quam motus aer et concitatus. Horum quatuor sunt principales, a quatuor caeli cardinibus flantes, videlicet Notus ab austro, Boreas ab aquilone, Zephyrus ab occidente, et ab oriente Apeliotes sive Eurus: quos Pontanus his duobus versiculis complexus ait:
[†verse — see flag: Pontanus couplet on the four winds]
Notus ventus meridionalis est, nebulosus et humidus, et calidus, et morbosus, quem Hieronymus vocat pincernam pluviarum. Ovidius sic describit:
[†verse — see flag: Ovid, description of Notus]
Boreas autem Noto contrarius, septentrionalis ventus est, violentus et siccus, qui nubes discutiens aerem serenum reddit, aquam gelu constringit: hunc Ovidius de se sic inducit loquentem:
[†verse — see flag: Ovid, Boreas speaking of his own powers]
Zephyrus vero, qui et Favonius, ventus levissimus ab occidente flans, et placidus, gratus, frigidus est et humidus, resolvens hiemes, germina floresque producens: huic contrarius Eurus, qui et Subsolanus, et Apeliotes, ab oriente ventus, aquosus et nubificus, et rapidae voracitatis. De istis ita canit Ovidius:
[†verse — see flag: Ovid, the four winds released — Eurus, Zephyrus, Boreas, Auster]
Close translation
Not of lesser power are the remaining two elements, water and air; nor in them does nature cease to work wonders. For water is so necessary that without it no animal could live, nor any herb, nor any plant whatever could sprout apart from water's moistening. It is the first seed-power of all things: of animals first, whose seed is manifestly watery; but even for the seeds of shrubs and herbs, however tender they be, it is necessary that this be done by water too, if they are to be fertile — whether it happens by moisture soaked into the earth, or by dew, or rain, or by water deliberately supplied. For earth and water alone, as Moses describes it, are said to produce the living soul: but water grants a double production — of swimming things in the waters, and of flying things in the air above the earth. That the productions of the earth too are owed in part to water itself, the same scripture attests, when it says that after the creation the shrubs and plants had not yet sprouted, because God had not rained upon the earth. So great is this element's power that not even spiritual regeneration happens without water, as Christ himself testified to Nicodemus.
Greatest too is its place in the use of religion, in expiations and purifications, its necessity no less than fire's. Its usefulness is infinite, and its use manifold, and all things consist by its power, since it possesses the power of generating, nourishing, and increasing. Hence Thales of Miletus and Hesiod held water to be the principle of all things, and said it was the oldest of all the elements and the most powerful, since it commands all the others. For, as Pliny says, water devours the lands: it kills flames: it climbs on high, and by the spreading of clouds claims the sky for itself: and the same waters, falling, become the cause of everything born on earth. Innumerable are the miracles of waters described by Pliny, Solinus, and many historians, of whose marvelous power Ovid too makes mention in these verses:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid lists springs and rivers with wondrous properties: one that is cold at midday and grows warm at dawn and dusk; waters of Athamas said to kindle wood at the mere touch, even under a thin moon; a river among the Ciconians that turns to stone whatever entrails drink of it; the Crathis and neighboring Sybaris that make hair the color of amber and gold; and — stranger still — waters said to change not bodies only but minds, as the notorious water of Salmacis; an Ethiopian lake whose drinkers either go mad or fall into a wondrous heavy sleep; the Clitorian spring, which after drinking gives a distaste for wine and makes one, sober, delight in plain water alone; and, by contrast, the Lyncestian river, of which whoever drinks even moderately staggers as if he had drunk strong wine. There is also a lake in Arcadia, Pheneus, called treacherous, whose waters are to be feared at night: drunk by night they harm, but by day are drunk without harm.
Josephus moreover reports the admirable nature of a certain river between the Syrian cities of Arcea and Raphanea: that though it flows in a full channel for a whole week, it then fails, as if its springs were stopped, and for six whole days offers a dry crossing of its bed, and again on the seventh day, by causes unknown to nature, returns to its former abundance of waters; wherefore the inhabitants call it the Sabbatical river, on account of the seventh day sacred to the Jews. And the Gospel testifies to us concerning the pool of Bethesda, into which, after the water had been stirred by an angel, whoever descended first was freed from whatever infirmity he had.
The same force and power is read to have belonged to the spring of the Ionid Nymphs, which stood in the territory of Elis, near the village of Heraclea, by the river Cytheron: into which whoever descended with a sick body would come out of it whole and sound, every bodily fault driven off. Pausanias relates that on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia there is a spring called Agria, to which, as often as the region's drought threatened the ruin of the crops, the priest of Jove Lycaeus would come, and, after sacrificing victims and venerating the sacred waters with sacred prayers, holding a branch of oak in his hand, would dip it to the surface of the consecrated spring's waters: then, the waters being stirred, a vapor rose from thence upward into the air and gathered into clouds, and as the mists rushed together the whole sky was overspread with clouds: which, resolving shortly after into rain, irrigated the whole region beneficially. But concerning the miracles of waters, besides many other authors, the physician Rufus of Ephesus wrote marvels not found, so far as I know, in any other author.
It remains to speak of air. This is the vital spirit, permeating all beings, affording life and coherence to all things, binding, moving, and filling all things. Hence the doctors of the Hebrews do not count it among the elements, but hold it as a kind of medium and glue joining diverse things together, and as it were the resounding instrument of the spirit of the world. For it receives into itself the influence of all celestial things most immediately, and communicates it to the others, both to the elements and to each of the compounds; no less does it receive and retain within itself, as a kind of divine mirror, the forms of all things — of natural things as well as artificial ones — and the forms of every kind of speech: and bearing these with it, entering the bodies of men and animals through the pores, imprinting them both in sleep and in waking, it furnishes the matter of various marvelous dreams, presentiments, and omens. Hence too they say it happens that one passing through a place where a man has been killed, or where a corpse lies recently hidden, is seized with fear and dread: because the air there, being full of the horrible forms of the homicide, affects and disturbs the spirit of the man, as it is breathed in together with those like forms: whence it comes about that fear follows — for whatever suddenly imprints itself stupefies nature.
Hence many philosophers have judged that air is the cause of dreams, and of many other impressions upon the soul, through the carrying of images, or likenesses, or forms, which fall from things and from speech and are multiplied in the air itself, until they arrive at the senses, and at last at the fantasy and soul of the recipient: namely, that the soul, freed of cares and unimpeded, awaiting forms of this kind as they come, is shaped by them. For the forms of things themselves, although by their own nature they are carried to the senses of men and animals, can nevertheless, while they are in the air, acquire some impression from the heavens, by which — together with the recipient's fitness and disposition — they are carried more toward one sense than toward another. And hence it is naturally possible, and far from all superstition, with no other spirit as intermediary, for one man to announce to another, at whatever distance, however great or even unknown, and in whatever dwelling, in the shortest time, the conception of his mind: and although the time in which this happens cannot be precisely measured, still it is altogether necessary that it happen within twenty-four hours: and I know how to do this, and have done it more than once. The same thing was known to, and was once done by, Abbot Trithemius.
That certain images too, not only spiritual but also natural, flow out from things — as it were through a certain influence of bodies upon bodies — and gather strength in the air itself, and then, now by light, now by motion, offer and show themselves to sight, and to the other senses as well, and sometimes work marvels upon us, Plotinus proves and teaches. And we see how, when the south wind blows, the air thickens into thin clouds, in which, as in a mirror, are reflected images of very distant camps, mountains, horses and men, and other things, which vanish soon after as the clouds depart. And Aristotle sets forth in his Meteorology that the rainbow is conceived in a cloud of air, by a certain likeness of a mirror. And Albertus says that the images of bodies can easily be formed by the power of nature in moist air, in the same way that the images of things exist in things. And Aristotle relates that it happened to a certain man, from weakness of sight, that the nearby air became a mirror to him, and the visual ray struck back upon it and could not penetrate it: so that wherever he went, he thought his own image went before him, facing him. Likewise, by the artifice of certain mirrors, whatever images we wish are produced in the air, even at a remove, outside the mirrors themselves — which unlearned men, seeing them, think they see the shades of demons or of souls, though they are nothing but certain likenesses akin to themselves, devoid of all sharpness of mind. And it is known that, if someone is in a dark place devoid of all light except where the sun's ray enters somewhere through a very small hole, with white paper or a flat mirror placed before it, whatever is done outside, lit by the sun, will be seen in it.
There is another illusion still more admirable, where, with images painted by a certain artifice, or letters written, one on a clear night holds them up to the rays of the full moon; and their likenesses, multiplied in the air and carried upward, together with the moon's reflected rays, another person, privy to the matter, sees, reads, and recognizes at a great distance, in the very disk or circle of the moon: which indeed is a most useful device for announcing secrets to besieged towns and cities, practiced of old by Pythagoras, and to this day still by others, and likewise not unknown to me. And all these things, and many more and greater ones, are founded in the very nature of air itself, and have their explanations from mathematics and optics. And just as these likenesses are reflected to sight, so too sometimes to hearing, as is manifest in the echo. But there are more hidden arts than these, whereby one may, even across a remote distance, hear and understand what another says, or whispers, in secret.
From the airy element too come the winds: for they themselves are nothing other than air moved and stirred. Of these there are four principal ones, blowing from the four cardinal points of heaven: namely Notus from the south, Boreas from the north, Zephyrus from the west, and from the east Apeliotes or Eurus: which Pontanus embraced in these two little verses:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Pontanus: Boreas and Notus breathe from the topmost and lowest points of heaven; Zephyrus sits in the west, Eurus comes from the rising sun.
Notus is the south wind, cloudy and humid, and hot, and disease-bearing, whom Jerome calls the cupbearer of the rains. Ovid describes him thus:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid: Notus flies out on dripping wings, his terrible face hidden in pitch-black darkness, his beard heavy with storm-clouds, water streaming from his white hair, mist sitting on his brow, his wings and garment-folds dripping.
Boreas, however, contrary to Notus, is the north wind, violent and dry, who, scattering the clouds, renders the air clear, and binds water with frost: Ovid brings him in thus speaking of himself:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid gives Boreas his own boast: that it is fitting to his power to drive away sad clouds, to churn the seas, to twist gnarled oak-trunks, to harden the snow and pelt the earth with hail; that when he meets his brother winds in the open sky, they clash with such force that the middle air resounds between them, and fire leaps out, struck from the hollow clouds; and that when he creeps into the earth's vaulted hollows and sets his fierce back beneath its deepest caverns, he disturbs the shades of the dead and shakes the whole world with tremors.
Zephyrus, indeed, who is also Favonius, is the gentlest wind, blowing from the west, and is calm and mild, cold and moist, dissolving winter, producing buds and flowers; contrary to him is Eurus, who is also Subsolanus and Apeliotes, a wind from the east, watery and cloud-bringing, and of rapid greed. Of these Ovid sings thus:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid: Eurus withdrew toward the dawn, to the Nabataean and Persian kingdoms, and the ridges lying under the morning rays; the evening star, and the shores that the setting sun warms again, lie nearest to Zephyrus; horrid Boreas invaded Scythia and the seven stars of the north; the land opposite is soaked by continual clouds and by rainy Auster.
Modern rendering
The other two elements, water and air, are no less powerful, and nature works just as many wonders through them. Water is so essential that no animal can live without it, and no herb or plant can sprout without its moisture. It is the original seed-power behind everything: animal semen is plainly watery, and even the seeds of shrubs and herbs, delicate as they are, need water to become fertile — whether from moisture soaked into the soil, from dew, from rain, or from water deliberately applied. Earth and water together, as Moses describes it, are said to bring forth the living soul; but water accounts for a double kind of production — swimming creatures in the water, and flying creatures in the air above the earth. Scripture also credits water with a share in producing things on land, since it says that after the creation the shrubs and plants had not yet sprouted, because God had not yet made it rain on the earth. Water's power runs so deep that not even spiritual rebirth happens without it, as Christ himself told Nicodemus.
Water also holds a central place in religious practice — in acts of purification and atonement, where its necessity matches that of fire. Its uses are endless and its benefits countless, and everything depends on its power, since it can generate, nourish, and increase. That is why Thales of Miletus and Hesiod took water to be the source of all things, calling it the oldest and most powerful of the elements, since it governs all the others. As Pliny puts it: water eats away the land, puts out flames, climbs into the sky and claims it for itself by spreading clouds — and those same waters, falling back down, become the cause of everything born on earth. Pliny, Solinus, and many other historians describe countless miracles worked by water, and Ovid mentions its marvelous power in these lines:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid runs through a catalog of wonder-springs and rivers: one that's cold at midday but warms up at dawn and dusk; the waters of Athamas, said to set wood alight at a touch even by weak moonlight; a river among the Ciconians that turns to stone anything that drinks from it; the Crathis and neighboring Sybaris, which turn hair the color of amber and gold; and, stranger still, waters said to change not just the body but the mind — the infamous spring of Salmacis is one; an Ethiopian lake whose drinkers either go mad or fall into a strangely heavy sleep; the Clitorian spring, which leaves you with a lasting distaste for wine, content with plain water instead; and, by contrast, the river Lyncestis, where even a modest drink leaves you staggering as if you'd downed strong wine. There's also a lake in Arcadia, Pheneus, treacherous by reputation: its waters are dangerous at night but harmless by day.
Josephus also reports something remarkable about a river running between the Syrian towns of Arcea and Raphanea: it flows full for a whole week, then, as if its source had been plugged, runs dry for six full days, letting people cross its bed on foot — and on the seventh day, for reasons nature doesn't explain, it's back to full flow. The locals call it the Sabbath river, after the Jewish seventh day it seems to observe. The Gospel likewise tells of the pool of Bethesda, where after an angel stirred the water, whoever got in first was healed of whatever illness they had.
The spring of the Ionid Nymphs was said to have the same power. It stood in the territory of Elis, near the village of Heraclea by the river Cytheron: anyone who went into it sick came out whole, cured of every bodily ailment. Pausanias tells of a spring on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia called Agria, where, whenever drought threatened to ruin the crops, the priest of Jupiter Lycaeus would come and, after sacrificing and praying over the sacred waters, dip an oak branch into the spring's surface. Stirring the water this way sent vapor rising into the air, which gathered into clouds; as the mist banked up, the whole sky clouded over, and shortly afterward the clouds turned to rain and watered the whole region. Beyond these authors, the physician Rufus of Ephesus wrote about other water-marvels not recorded, as far as I know, by anyone else.
Now for air. Air is the vital spirit — it runs through everything that exists, gives life and coherence to everything, binds things together, moves them, and fills them. That's why the Hebrew scholars don't count it among the elements at all, but treat it instead as a kind of medium or glue joining different things together — the resonating instrument, so to speak, of the spirit of the world. Air takes in the influence of everything celestial more directly than anything else, and passes that influence on to the elements and to every compound thing. It also receives and holds onto — like a kind of divine mirror — the forms of everything, natural and man-made alike, and the forms of every kind of speech. Carrying these forms with it, entering the bodies of humans and animals through the pores, and imprinting them in both sleep and waking life, it supplies the raw material for all sorts of remarkable dreams, premonitions, and omens. This is also supposedly why walking past a place where someone was murdered, or where a corpse lies freshly hidden, brings on sudden fear and dread: the air there is saturated with the horrifying imagery of the killing, and breathing it in disturbs a person's spirit with those same images — which is why the fear follows. Anything that imprints itself on us suddenly stuns the mind.
That's why many philosophers have concluded that air causes dreams and many other impressions on the soul — through images, likenesses, or forms that break off from things and from speech, multiply in the air, and eventually reach the senses and then the imagination and soul of the person receiving them. Free of worries and distractions, the soul waits for exactly this kind of impression and gets shaped by it when it arrives. Even though the forms given off by things naturally travel toward the senses of people and animals on their own, while they're in the air they can pick up some added influence from the heavens — and depending on the receiver's own fitness and state, that can direct them more toward one sense than another. Which is why it's naturally possible — with nothing superstitious about it, and no other spirit acting as go-between — for one person to communicate a thought to another at any distance, however great or unknown the location, in a very short span of time. The exact time it takes can't be pinned down precisely, but it always happens within twenty-four hours. I know how to do this myself, and I've done it more than once. Abbot Trithemius knew how too, and did it on at least one occasion.
Plotinus demonstrates that certain images — not just spiritual ones but natural ones too — flow out from things (through a kind of transmission from body to body), take shape in the air, and then, by light or by motion, present and display themselves to sight and the other senses, sometimes working real marvels on us. We can see this ourselves: when the south wind blows, the air thickens into thin clouds, and in them, as in a mirror, we see reflected images of very distant camps, mountains, horses, and people, and other things, which vanish again as soon as the clouds move on. Aristotle explains in his Meteorology that the rainbow forms in a cloud through a similar mirror-like effect. Albertus adds that nature can easily shape the images of physical bodies in moist air, the same way the images of things exist within things. And Aristotle tells of a man whose weak eyesight turned the nearby air into a kind of mirror for him — his own line of sight bounced back off it instead of passing through — so that wherever he walked, he thought his own reflection was walking ahead of him, facing him. In the same way, certain mirrors can be used to project any image we like into the air, even some distance away from the mirror itself — which is why unschooled people who see such things think they're looking at the ghosts of demons or of the dead, when really they're nothing but likenesses resembling the viewer, with no mind or awareness of their own. It's also well known that if you're in a completely dark room, with only a tiny hole letting in a ray of sunlight, and you hold up a sheet of white paper or a flat mirror to catch it, you'll see on it whatever is happening outside in the sunlit world.
There's an even more remarkable trick: someone paints images or writes letters using a particular technique, then on a clear night holds them up to the light of the full moon. Their likenesses, multiplied in the air and carried upward together with the moon's reflected light, can be seen, read, and recognized by someone else in on the secret, at a great distance, right in the disk of the moon itself. This is an extremely useful method for getting messages to besieged towns and cities — Pythagoras is said to have used it long ago, others still use it today, and I'm familiar with it myself. All of this, and much more besides, is grounded in the very nature of air, and can be explained through mathematics and optics. Just as these images can be reflected to the eye, so too, sometimes, to the ear — as is obvious from the phenomenon of an echo. But there are more hidden techniques still, by which a person can hear and make out, even across a great distance, what someone else is saying or whispering in private.
Winds also come from the element of air — they are nothing but air set in motion and stirred up. There are four main ones, blowing from the four points of the compass: Notus from the south, Boreas from the north, Zephyrus from the west, and Apeliotes, or Eurus, from the east. Pontanus summed them up in two short verses:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Pontanus: Boreas and Notus blow from the top and bottom of the sky; Zephyrus takes the west, Eurus comes from the east.
Notus, the south wind, is cloudy, damp, hot, and disease-bringing — Jerome calls him the "cupbearer of the rains." Ovid describes him this way:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid pictures Notus flying in on dripping wings, his terrifying face wrapped in pitch-dark cloud, his beard heavy with storms, water streaming from his white hair, mist settled on his brow, his wings and robes soaked through.
Boreas, the opposite of Notus, is the north wind — violent and dry. He scatters clouds to clear the sky and locks up water with frost. Ovid has him boast about himself in these terms:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid's Boreas claims the power to drive off gloomy clouds, churn up the sea, twist gnarled oak trunks, harden snow, and pelt the ground with hail; when he meets his brother winds in open sky their collision is so violent that thunder rolls between them and fire bursts from the struck clouds; and when he burrows into the hollow depths of the earth and presses his fierce back against its deepest caverns, he stirs the spirits of the dead and shakes the whole world with tremors.
Zephyrus, also called Favonius, is the gentlest wind, blowing from the west — calm and mild, cool and moist, melting winter away and bringing out buds and flowers. His opposite is Eurus, also known as Subsolanus and Apeliotes, a wind from the east that's wet, cloud-bringing, and voracious in its speed. Ovid sings of all four this way:
(verse, summarized — see flag) Ovid: Eurus withdrew toward the sunrise, to the kingdoms of the Nabataeans and the Persians, and the ridges under the morning light; the evening star and the coasts warmed by the setting sun lie closest to Zephyrus; harsh Boreas invaded icy Scythia and the northern stars; and the land across from it is soaked by endless clouds and the rainy south wind.
Editorial flags — draft status
- verse: Ovid catalogue of marvelous waters (Hammon spring, Athamas's kindling waters, Ciconian petrifying river, Crathis/Sybaris hair-dyeing rivers, Salmacis, Ethiopian lake, Clitorian spring, Lyncestian river, Pheneus lake) — likely Metamorphoses XV (Pythagoras's speech). OCR of the verse block is unreliable; kept as-is in latin, prose-summarized in translations.
- verse: Pontanus couplet on the four cardinal winds (Borcas/Notus/Zephyrus/Eurus) — two-line 'versiculi' attributed to Pontanus; OCR uncertain, prose-summarized.
- verse: Ovid's description of Notus (south wind) — likely Metamorphoses I (the flood). OCR of verse uncertain, prose-summarized.
- verse: Ovid's Boreas speaking in the first person of his own powers — likely Metamorphoses VI (Boreas and Orithyia). OCR uncertain, prose-summarized.
- verse: Ovid on the four winds' geography (Eurus/Nabataea, Zephyrus/Vesper, Boreas/Scythia, Auster) — likely Metamorphoses I (the release of the winds after the flood). OCR uncertain, prose-summarized.
- uncertain: The sentence introducing Genesis ('Sola siquidem terra et aqua... producere animam viventem') is a paraphrase/allusion rather than a verbatim Vulgate quotation; Agrippa's exact wording here is OCR-damaged and reconstructed from sense.
- uncertain: River location 'Arcea et Raphanea' (Josephus's Sabbatical river) — town names may carry residual OCR noise; kept as printed with standard capitalization normalization only.