[p. 231] from above continues. The south and southwest winds, on the contrary, forced down to the southern zone and the lowest part of the heavens, are lower and flatter, and as they blow over the surface of the sea, they push forward 1 the waves rather than raise them up. Therefore the waters are not struck from above but are forced forward, and even after the wind has fallen they retain for some time the motion given by the original impulse. Moreover, this very suggestion of mine may be supported by the following lines of Homer, if one reads them carefully. For he wrote thus of the blasts of the south wind: 2
Then Notus drives huge waves against the western cliff,but on the other hand he speaks in a different way of boreas, which we call aquilo: 3
And Boreas aetherborn, uprolling a great wave.For he means that the waves stirred up by the north winds, which are high and blow from above, are so to speak rolled downward, but that by the south winds, which are lower than these, they are driven forward in an upward direction by a somewhat greater force and pushed up. For that is the meaning of the verb ὠθεῖ, as also in another passage: 4
The stone toward the hilltop pushed he up.This also has been observed by the most learned investigators of nature, that when the south winds blow, the sea becomes blue and bright, but, under the north winds, darker and more gloomy. I noted the cause of this when I was making excerpts from the Problems of Aristotle. 5
