Lord in St.
Matthew, xvi. 2, 3: "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair
weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather
to-day, for the sky is red and lowring." Shakespeare, in his "Venus and
Adonis," thus describes it:

"a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds."

Mr. Swainson[95] shows that this notion is common on the Continent.
Thus, at Milan the proverb runs, "If the morn be red, rain is at hand."

[95] "Weather-Lore," pp. 175, 176.

Shakespeare, in "Richard II." (ii. 4), alludes to another indication of
rain:

"Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest."

A "watery sunset" is still considered by many a forerunner of wet. A red
sunset, on the other hand, beautifully described in "Richard III." (v.
3)--

"The weary sun hath made a golden set."--

is universally regarded as a prognostication of fine weather, and we
find countless proverbs illustrative of this notion, one of the most
popular being, "Sky red at night, is the sailor's delight."

From the earliest times an eclipse of the sun was looked upon as an omen
of coming calamity; and was oftentimes the source of extraordinary alarm
as well as the occasion of various superstitious ceremonies. In 1597,
during an eclipse of the sun, it is stated that, at Edinburgh, men and
women thought the day of judgment was come.[96] Many women swooned, much
crying was heard in the streets, and in fear some ran to the kirk to
pray. Mr. Napier says he remembers "an eclipse about 1818, when about
three parts of the sun was covered. The alarm in the village was very
great, indoor work was suspended for the time, and in several families
prayers were offered for protection, believing that it portended some
awful calamity; but when it passed off there was a general feeling of
relief." In "King Lear" (i. 2), Gloucester remarks: "These late eclipses
in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature
can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the
sequent effects; love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in
cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the
bond cracked 'twixt son and father." Othello, too (v. 2), in his agony
and despair, exclaims: