Look, too, for foul weather, when in windless calm airy gossamers are flying, and when the rays of the lamp are wan and flickering, or when in fair weather fire and torches are hard to kindle. Why recount all the warning hints that come to men? The unsightly clotting of the ash is sign of snow: the ring of spots like millet seed around the blazing wick of the lamp betokens snow; but sign of hail are live coals, when they outward brightly shine, but in their centre appears, as it were, a hazy mist within the glowing fire.
Nor are holm-oaks, laden with acorns, and the dark mastich untried. With frequent glance on every side the miller ever peers, anxious lest the summer slip from his hand. Holm-oaks with moderate crops of frequent acorns will tell of heavy storm to come. Pray that they may not be exceedingly heavy laden, but only that far from drought the cornfields flourish even as they.
Thrice the mastich buds and thrice wax ripe its berries. Each crop in turn brings a sign for the sowing. For men divide the sowing season into three—early, middle, late. The first crop of mastich heralds the first of grain; the second the middle; the latest the last of all. The richest crop that the teaming mastich bears will hint of the wealthiest harvest from the plough: the meanest crop foretells scanty grain, and average mastich heralds average corn. Likewise the stalk of the squill flowers thrice to give hint of corresponding harvest. All the hints the farmer marked in the mastich crop, the same he learns from the white blossom of the squill.
But when in autumn frequent swarms of wasps crowd on every side, one can foretell the winter-storm to come even before the Pleiads are westering, swift and sudden as the eddy wherein the wasps are wheeling. Sows and ewes and she-goats, when after mating with the male they mate again, equally with wasps foretell heavy storm. When she-goats
and ewes and sows mate late in the season, the poor man rejoices, because their mating reveals to him that is thinly clad the coming of an open winter.
In seasonable flight of thronging cranes rejoices the seasonable farmer: in untimely flight the untimely ploughman. For ever so the winters follow the cranes: early winters, when their flight is early and in flocks: when they fly late and not in flocks, but over a longer period in small bands, the later farming benefits by the delay of winter.
If oxen and sheep after the heavy-laden Autumn dig the ground and stretch their heads to face the North wind, verily the Pleiads at their setting will bring a stormy winter. Pray that their digging be not excessive, for then is the winter exceedingly severe and a foe both to tree and tilth. May deep snow clothe the mighty fields, veiling the tender shoot, not yet separate nor tall, so that the anxious husbandman may rejoice in well-being.
May the stars above shine ever with due brightness; and may no comets, one nor two nor more, appear! for many comets herald a season of drought.
Nor on the mainland does the husbandman rejoice at the coming of summer to see trooping flocks of birds, when from the islands they alight upon his fields, but exceeding dread is his for the harvest, lest vexed by drought it come with empty ears and chaff. But the goat-herd rejoices even in the birds, when they come in moderate flocks with promise of a season of plenteous milk.
For thus do we poor, changeful mortals win in divers ways our livelihood, and all are ready to mark the warnings at their feet and adopt them for the moment.
Sheep warn the shepherd of coming storm when they rush to pasture in haste beyond their wont, but some behind the flock, now rams, now lambs, sport by the way with butting horns, when some here, some there, they bound aloft, the sillier young with four feet off the ground, the horned elders with two, or when the shepherd moves an unwilling flock, though it be evening when he drives them to their pens, while ever and anon they pluck the grass, though urged by many a stone.
From oxen too the ploughman and the neat-herd learn of the stirring of the storm. When oxen lick with their tongue around the hooves of their fore-feet or in their stalls stretch themselves on their right side, the old ploughman expects the sowing to be delayed. When with ceaseless lowing the kine collect as they wend at eventide to their stalls, the heifers reluctant to leave the meadow pastureland give warning that anon they will not feed in stormless weather. Not fair weather do the goats betide when greedy for prickly holm-oak, and the sows rage furiously over their bedding.
When a solitary wolf howls loud, or when, as if he sought for shelter, recking little of farmer men, he descends to the cultivated lands near to men to seek a lair there, expect a storm when the third dawn comes round. So, too, by the previous signs thou canst forecast the winds or storm or rain to come on the self-same day or on the morrow or it may be on the third morn.
Mice, too, as sign of storm, whenever with louder squeaking than their wont they gambolled and seemed to dance in fair weather, were not unmarked by the weather-seers of old. Nor were dogs. The dog with both his paws digs when he suspects the coming of a storm, and then too those mice turn prophets. And landward comes the crab, when the storm is about to burst.
Mice in the daytime toss straw and are fain to build a nest when Zeus shows signs of rain.
Make light of none of these warnings. Good rule it is—to look for sign confirming sign. When two point the same way, forecast with hope; when three, with confidence. Thou canst always add the signs of the passing season, comparing whether at rising or at setting of a star the day dawn such as the calendar would herald. It would profit much to mark the last four days of the old and the first four of the new month. They hold the terms of
the meeting months, when the sky on eight nights is deceptive beyond its wont for lack of the bright-eyed Moon.
Study all the signs together throughout the year and never shall thy forecast of the weather be a random guess.
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