The King's Mirror (Speculum regale-Konungs skuggsjá)
Philosophy
The King's Mirror (Speculum regale-Konungs skuggsjá)
Education of princes; Encyclopedias and dictionaries -- Early works to 1600; Scandinavia -- Civilization
But when the west wind observes that a wrathful blast and a sorrowful
sighing are coming across to him from the east, whence formerly he was
accustomed to receive shining beams with festive gifts, he understands
clearly that the covenant is broken and that all treaties are renounced.
Deeply grieved and pained because of the unpeace, he puts on a black
robe of mourning over which he pulls a cloud-gray cloak, and, sitting
with wrinkled nose and pouting lips, he breathes heavily with regretful
care. And when the ill-tempered northwest wind observes how sorrowful
his neighbors look, and sees how he himself has suffered the loss of the
evening beauty which he was formerly accustomed to display, he shows at
once his temper in stern wrath: he knits his brows fiercely, throws
rattling hail violently about, and sends forth the rolling thunder with
terrifying gleams of lightning, thus displaying on his part a fearful
and merciless anger. But when the north wind misses the friendliness and
the kind gifts which he was wont to get from the south wind, he seeks
out his hidden treasures and displays the wealth that he has most of: he
brings out a dim sheen which glitters with frost, places an ice-cold
helmet on his head above his frozen beard, and blows hard against the
hail-bearing cloud-heaps. But the chill northeast wind sits wrathful
with snowy beard and breathes coldly through his wind-swollen nostrils.
Glaring fiercely under his rimy brows, he wrinkles his cheeks beneath
his cold and cloudy temples, puffs his jowl with his icy tongue, and
blows the piercing drift-snow vigorously forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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