A cloudy rising of the sun has generally been regarded as ominous—a superstition equally prevalent on the Continent as in this country. In “Richard III.” (v. 3), King Richard asks:
“Who saw the sun to-day?
Ratcliff.Not I, my lord.
K. Richard. Then he disdains to shine; for, by the book
He should have braved the east an hour ago:
A black day will it be to somebody.”
“The learned Moresin, in his ‘Papatus,’” says Brand,[93] “reckons among omens the cloudy rising of the sun.” Vergil, too, in his first Georgic (441-449), considers it a sign of stormy weather:[94]
“Ille ubi nascentem maculis variaverit ortum
Conditus in nubem, medioque refugerit orbe,
Suspecti tibi sint imbres; namque urget ab alto
Arboribusque satisque Notus pecorique sinister,
Aut ubi sub lucem densa inter nubila sese
Diversi rumpent radii, aut ubi pallida surget,
Tithoni croceum linquens Aurora cubile,
Heu, male tum mitis defendet pampinus uvas:
Tam multa in tectis crepitans salit horrida grando.”
A red sunrise is also unpropitious, and, according to a well-known rhyme:
“If red the sun begins his race,
Be sure the rain will fall apace.”
This old piece of weather-wisdom is mentioned by our 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.”