Boreas

Boreas is the harshest of all the winds.

Aeolus wooed and married the dainty Aurora, goddess of the morning, who bore him his sons, i.e. Boreas, the north wind; Notus, the south wind; Eurus, the east wind; and Zephyrus, the soft and gentle west wind. Sometimes Aurora sought the services of her children, but they were entirely under the control of their father Aeolus who ruled them with a strict hand.

For a Tempeſt. Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auſter and Boreas, and caſt them together in one Verſe. Add to theſe of Rain, Lightning, and of Thunder (the loudeſt you can) quantum ſufficit. Mix your Clouds and Billows well together till they foam, and thicken your Deſcription here and there with a Quickſand. Brew your Tempeſt well in your Head, before you ſet it a blowing.

BOREAS, one of the four Cardinal Winds, and one of the Deities of the Heathens, was the Son of Aſtræus and Aurora, and had his Seat at Thrace. Pindar calls him the King of Winds. [Footnote numbers omitted.]

Orithya was the daughter of Erectheus, and the prieſteſs of Boreas; for each of the winds has a preſiding deity, which the teleſtic art, or the art pertaining to ſacred myſteries, religiouſly cultivates. […] Orithya, therefore, becoming enthusiastic, being poſſeſſed by her proper God Boreas, and no longer energizing as a human being (for animals ceaſe to energize according to their own peculiarities, when poſſeſſed by ſuperior causes), died under the inſpiring influence, and thus was ſaid to have been raviſhed by Boreas.

The promotion of Pan is matched by the new attention Athens paid to Boreas, god of the north wind, after he destroyed the Persian fleet off Artemision (Herodotus, 7.189) A tradition (λέγεται δε λόγος) held that the Athenians prayed to the god before the battle to assist them, the equivalent of the prebattle encounter between Pan and Pheidippides. As in the complaint of Pan, the god Boreas was remembered as assisting the Greeks before, in this case by having sent a storm off Mount Athos during the expedition under Mardonios (6.44.2).

One very windy day, the god Boreas became a citizen of the town of Thurii, the new Sybaris in Magna Graecia. In more concrete terms, in 397 b.c. Dionysius of Syracuse, at war with the Carthaginians, launched an expedition of three hundred ships crammed with armed men – hoplites, men of bronze – against Thurii. The North Wind was blowing against them, and Boreas wrecked the ship. It was a disaster for Dionysius, but the citizens of Thurii, saved by the god Boreas, passed a decree granting citizenship to the wind.

Now stands the Brere like a lord alone, / Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleasaunce. / But all this glee had no continuaunce: / For eftsones winter gan to approche; / The blustering Boreas did encroche, / And beate upon the solitarie Brere; / For nowe no succoure was seene him nere.

BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas blow; / Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof; / Your incivility doth ſhow, / That innocence is tempeſt proof; / Though ſurly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; / Then ſtrike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm. [Attributed to Roger L'Estrange (1616–1704).]

"Timber felled in winter, when Boreas is blowing, will burn beautifully and almost without smoke" (2.4.39 [24]). […] "Face all the summer rooms [of the villa] to receive Boreas" (5.18.153 [91v]); and "It is best to make libraries face Boreas" (9.10.317 [174v]).