Boreas

See also: boreas and Bóreas

English

WOTD – 28 April 2016

A sculpture of Boreas from Hadda, Afghanistan, from the collection of the Guimet Museum in Paris

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Βορέᾱς (Boréās).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɔːɹɪəs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɔɹɪəs/
• Hyphenation: Bo‧re‧as

Proper noun

Boreas

1. (Greek mythology) The god of the North Wind, Storms, Winter, Ice and Snow .
   • 1714 June 10, [Alexander Pope], “A Receit to make an Epick Poem”, in The Guardian, volume I, number 78, London: Printed for J[acob] Tonson, at Shakespear's-Head over-against Catherine-street in the Strand, page 332:

     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.

   • 1735, Pierre Bayle with Pierre des Maizeaux, The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr Peter Bayle. The Second Edition, Carefully Collated with the Several Editions of the Original; in which many Passages are Restored, and the Whole Greatly Augmented, particularly with a Translation of the Quotations from Eminent Writers in Various Languages. To which is Prefixed, the Life of the Author, Revised, Corrected, and Enlarged, by Mr Des Maizeaux, Fellow of the Royal Society, 2nd edition, volume II, London: Printed for J. J. and P. Knapton; [et al.], →OCLC, page 78:

     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.]

   • 1804, Plato, “The Phædrus”, in Floyer Sydenham, Thomas Taylor, transl., The Works of Plato, viz. His Fifty-five Dialogues, and Twelve Epistles, Translated from the Greek; Nine of the Dialogues by the Late Floyer Sydenham, and the Remainder by Thomas Taylor: with Occasional Annotations on the Nine Dialogues Translated by Sydenham, and Copious Notes, by the Latter Translator; in which is Given the Substance of nearly all the Existing Greek Ms. Commentaries on the Philosophy of Plato, and a Considerable Portion of such as are already Published. In Five Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for Thomas Taylor, by R. Wilks, Chancery-Lane; and sold by E. Jeffery, and R. E. Evans, Pall-Mall, page 293, footnote 2:

     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.

   • 1995, Sarah P. Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 322:

     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).

   • 2000, Giulia Sissa with Marcel Detienne, “When the Olympians Donned the Citizen's Costume”, in Janet Lloyd, transl., The Daily Life of the Greek Gods, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 137:

     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.

2. (poetic) The north wind personified.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: Conteyning Tvvelue Æglogues Proportionable to the Twelue Monethes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman most Worthy of all Titles both of Learning and Cheualrie M. Philip Sidney, London: Printed by Hugh Singleton, dwelling in Creede Lane neere vnto Ludgate at the signe of the gylden Tunne, and are there to be solde, OCLC 606515406; republished in Francis J[ames] Child, editor, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser: The Text Carefully Revised, and Illustrated with Notes, Original and Selected by Francis J. Child: Five Volumes in Three, volume III, Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, published 1855, OCLC 793557671, page 406, lines 222–228:

     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.

   • 1781, [Mostyn John Armstrong], History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk. Volume IX. Containing the Hundreds of Smithdon, Taverham, Tunstead, Walsham, and Wayland, volume IX, Norwich: Printed by J. Crouse, for M. Booth, bookseller, →OCLC, page 51:

     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).]

   • 1991, Leon Battista Alberti with Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor, transl., On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 427:

     "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]).

Hypernyms

• Anemoi

Coordinate terms

• Boreas/Septentrio/Aquilon (north), Notos/Auster (south), Eurus/Subsolanus (east), Zephyr/Zephyrus/Favonius (west)

Related terms

• aurora borealis
• Boreads
• boreal

Translations

Greek god

• Bulgarian: Боре́й m (Boréj)
• Catalan: Bòreas m
• Esperanto: Boreo
• French: Borée (fr) m
• Greek: Βορέας (el) m (Voréas), Βορρέας (el) m (Vorréas)

  Ancient: Βορέᾱς m (Boréās)

• Hungarian: Boreasz
• Italian: Borea m
• Latin: Boreas m
• Polish: Boreasz (pl) m
• Portuguese: Bóreas (pt) m
• Russian: Боре́й (ru) m (Boréj)
• Serbo-Croatian: Borej m, Бореј m
• Spanish: Bóreas m
• Swedish: Boreas
• Ukrainian: Боре́й m (Boréj)

the north wind personified

• Chinese：

  Mandarin: 北風／北风 (zh) (Běifēng)

• Russian: Боре́й (ru) m (Boréj)
• Swedish: Bore, Kung Bore

Further reading

• Anemoi – Boreas on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• Anu Garg (2015 September 5 (last accessed)) “Boreas”, in A.Word.a.Day, Wordsmith.org‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 September 2015.
• “Boreas”, in Webster's Dictionary‎^[2], Merriam-Webster, 2015 September 13 (last accessed), archived from the original on 13 September 2015.

Anagrams

• sea orb