The Winds in Western Tradition

The month of February in the French republican calendar was Ventôse. Since the beginning of time, winds have accompanied the daily lives of human communities. Symbol of life (are we not “dust in the wind”?), they scatter seeds in all directions, winds can also bring storms and death; what is certain is that they are generally unstable. Guiding yourself by the winds has become a habit, especially for sea voyages. Eastern Mediterranean navigators identified the prevailing winds and aligned them with the sun, the east wind where the sun rises, the south wind from the highest sun side, the west wind from where the sun sets, and the north wind blowing from the mountains over which the North Star is visible. In Homer’s times we find winds from four directions: Boreas from the north, Euros from the east, Notos from the south and Zephyr from the west.

In the Tower of the Winds in Athens, 8 winds are fixed: Boreas [N], Cecias [NE], Apeliotes [E], Euros [SE], Notos [S], Argestes [SO], Zephyrus [O], Sciron [NO]. This simple design of four main directions as perpendicular regions was easy to understand and transmit. But as pilots move onto new lands and new islands, new winds and new directions are identified. The directions are not necessarily exact points on the horizon, sometimes they are just somewhat undefined zones: there are six directions when distinguishing between east and west intermediate winds: Boreas [N], Euros [NE], Apeliotes [SE], Notos [S ], Argestes [SO], Zephyrus [NO]. The Romans speak of 12 directions that will combine intermediate winds by combining the names of adjacent ones… Sometimes the main directions are multiplied by two –2, 4, 8, 16, 32—, other times they are multiplied by three –2, 6, 12—, with increasingly smaller angles.

In Portugal, facing the Atlantic Ocean, it was the west wind that was best known: the Greek Zephyr, sweet and bringing rain, who lives where the sun sets, in the house of the evening star, became Favónio with the Romans, a soft and pleasant wind that heralds spring and melts the snow (Pliny the Elder remembers that in the lands of the Lusitanians he was the one who fertilized the mares). In the times of Charlemagne it was the Vuestroni. In the humble speech of sailors from Iberia, it became Ponente (“the setting-sun direction”) (Catalan Atlas, 1375). With more demanding navigations in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Portuguese and Spaniards expanded the “wind-wheel” to 32 wind and compass directions, and navigation books recorded variants such as “ponente” or “poente” or “oeste”. These smaller angles, of 11º and 15', are 32 in the wind rose. Each one receives the name of “quarta” (a fourth), and each one, in the identification of the tides throughout the lunar month, corresponds to the interval of 48 minutes of the moon’s position from one day to the next. [José Madruga Carvalho]