he earth,
removes and carries with it those things which are not stable in the
universal drift. And in order to represent this storm adequately, you
must in the first place represent tattered and rent clouds rushing with
the rushing wind, accompanied by sandy dust caught up from the
seashores, and boughs and leaves torn up by the force and fury of the
wind, and dispersed in the air with many other light objects. The
trees and the plants bent towards the earth almost seem as though they
wished to follow the rushing wind, with their boughs wrenched from
their natural direction and their foliage all disordered and distorted.
Of the men who are to be seen, some are fallen and entangled in their
clothes and almost unrecognizable on account of the dust, and those who
remain standing may be behind some tree, clutching hold of it so that
the wind may not tear them away; others, with their hands over their
eyes on account of the dust, stoop towards the ground, with their
clothes and hair streaming to the wind. The sea should be rough and
tempestuous, and full of swirling eddies and foam among the high waves,
and the wind hurls the spray through the tumultuous air like a thick
and swathing mist. {129} As regards the ships that are there, you will
depict some with torn sails and tattered shreds fluttering through the
air with shattered rigging; some of the masts will be split and fallen,
and the ship lying down and wrecked in the raging waves; some men will
be shrieking and clinging to the remnants of the vessel. You will make
the clouds driven by the fury of the winds and hurled against the high
summits of the mountains, and eddying and torn like waves beaten
against rocks; the air shall be terrible owing to deep darkness caused
by the dust and the mist and the dense clouds.

[Sidenote: How to describe a Battle]

85.

In the first place you must represent the smoke of the artillery
mingled with the air, and the dust, and tossed up by the stampede of
the horses and the combatants. And you must treat this confusion in
this way: dust being an earthly thing has weight, and although owing to
its fineness it is easily lifted up and mingled with the air, it
nevertheless falls readily to the earth again, and it is its finest
part which rises highest, therefore that part will be the least visible
and will seem to be almost of the same colour as the air; the higher
the smoke, which is mingled with the dusty air, rises towards a