VISIO QUARTA, cap. XCIV
The North Wind's Destructive Power
The north wind is described as a fierce, destructive force that darkens the sun, terrifies people, and shatters earthly fruitfulness, yet paradoxically makes heavenly lights appear more beautiful through its darkness.
But among these the north wind shows its harshness and terror more often, when it spreads its blustery wing against the turning of the sky and toward the east, where it stirs up both a terrible and harmful smoke again and again, and sends out a cold dampness in summer that damages the fruit of the earth and withers the trees. When this happens, that same terrible blast piles up with great ferocity, and covers the cloud through which the sun's sphere shines, so that to people the sun seems to have failed. In the same way, this same blast also causes wandering under the clouds, and from this darkness comes upon the earth at that time. But this cannot be seen by people unless great portents are foreshadowed, because through these elements it is set in motion, just as a hand can be moved and bent through the arm to mark and accomplish everything. And this same blast plays with the moon many times because of the contrary deeds of people, so that it appears to them now black in color, now iron-colored, and now marked with varied colors. Therefore its appearance is terrifying to people at such a time. For the north wind is dangerous in every direction toward which it turns, and harmful to everything over which it blows; and a warm breeze that flies gently from the sun with the moisture of dew, bringing all the greenness and fruitfulness of the fields to completion in the earth, it disturbs by its own cold and harshness, and shatters the prosperity of what is useful. It sustains other winds, like a person who leans against a wall and so serves them; and all the heavenly lights appear more adorned and more beautiful through the darkness of the north wind, because there is no light in it.
The Left Arm Supports the Right
The left arm supports and ministers to the right, mirroring how the north wind sustains other winds.
And in this same way the left arm also supports the right and ministers to it.
The Soul's Four Powers and Four Wings
All the preceding imagery of limbs, winds, and day-night cycles is to be referred to the soul, which God equipped with four elemental powers and four governing powers like wings.
How all these things which were taken up in the two preceding chapters concerning the measures or the bendings of human limbs, or again the winds, and also the alternation of day and night and of the hours, are to be referred to the soul; and how God has equipped the soul itself with four powers — the ones it has according to the body from the elements, namely fire, air, water, and earth — and, in turn, has furnished it with four others as it were like certain wings, by which to govern itself and that same body.
Read the original Latin
Sed inter hos aquilo asperitatem et horrorem suum saepius ostendit, cum ventosam alam suam in rotam firmamenti et contra orientem extendit, ubi et terribilem et nocivum fumum multoties movet, frigidamque humiditatem in aestate emittit, quae fructum terrae laedit arboresque arefacit. Cum istud acciderit, idem horribilis flatus cum magna ferocitate se aggerat, nubemque per quam sphaera solis lucet obtegit, ita ut hominibus sol defecisse videatur. Sic quoque idem flatus errorem sub nubibus facit, unde et tenebrae in terra tunc fiunt. Sed istud ab hominibus videri non potest, nisi cum magna portenta praefigurantur, quoniam per elementa ista moventur, velut manus per brachium flecti, signare omniaque operari potest. Et idem flatus propter contraria opera hominum cum luna multoties ita ludit, ut ipsa eis interdum coloris nigri, interdum ferrei et interdum coloris varii distincta appareat. Quapropter et aspectus ejus terribilis hominibus tunc est. Aquilo namque in omni parte ad quam se dirigit periculosus est, et omni rei super quam efflat nocens, calidumque flatum, qui de sole cum humiditate roris suaviter volat et omnem viriditatem et fructus agrorum in terra perficit, frigiditate et asperitate sua conturbat, prosperitatemque utilitatis devitat. Alios autem ventos sustinet, quemadmodum homo, qui ad parietem se reclinat, et eis sic ministrat, omniaque luminaria per tenebras aquilonis ornatiora et speciosiora in creaturis videntur, quia lumen in ipso non est.
Et secundum hunc modum sinistrum etiam brachium dextrum sustentat, eique ministrat.
Quomodo universa haec quae de mensuris vel inflexionibus humanorum artuum seu ventorum duobus superioribus capitulis comprehensa sunt, sed et vicissitudo diei et noctis et horarum ad animam referenda sunt; et quod ipsam animam Deus quatuor viribus, quas secundum corpus ex elementis, scilicet igne, aere, aqua et terra habet, et secundum se item quatuor quasi quibusdam alis ad regendum se ipsam et idem corpus suum instruxerit.
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