Note 781 — Chapter VII · THE ATMOSPHERE
Reading edition
Alexander Neckam makes Boreas a bringer of hail and Auster a rainy wind (De laud. div. sap., II, 85–92).
Bernard Sylvester writes:
“Obriguit Boreas, maduit Notus, Auster et Eurus:
Hic tempestates, ille serena facit.”
—De mundi univ., p. 19.
Classical tradition, however, was apparently uniform in conceiving of Notus and Auster as the same. See table in Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 550–551. William of Conches describes Boreas as a dry, as well as cold, wind “because it drives the clouds before it toward the mid region of the earth.” But also, because of the very fact that it does so drive the clouds before it, it is a producer of rain along the borders of the torrid zone. “Siccus vero, quia nubes de hoc angulo terrae ad medium fugat, estque pluviosus juxta fines torridae zonae” (De phil. mundi, III, 15).