Areopagus Volume XXXIII

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the thirty third volume of the Areopagus. It's been terribly windy where I am - every day the windows are rattling and the clouds are rushing overhead. This endless howling drew me to think of The Lusiads, a 16th century epic poem by the Portuguese writer Luís Vaz de Camões, inspired by the Aeneid and told in the great Homeric tradition.

At one point the sailors of The Lusiads are caught in a storm. Here is how Camões describes it:

And now, the God of Tempests swift unbinds
From their dark caves the various rushing winds:
High o'er the storm the power impetuous rides,
His howling voice the roaring tempest guides;
Right to the dauntless fleet their rage he pours,
And, first their headlong outrage tears the shores:
A deeper night involves the darken'd air,
And livid flashes through the mountains glare:
Uprooted oaks, with all their leafy pride,
Roll thund'ring down the groaning mountain's side;
And men and herds in clam'rous uproar run,
The rocking towers and crashing woods to…