From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Snow
χιών
chiōnChiōn is snow.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordChiōn is snow.
- In StobaeusThe account attributed to Anaximenes assigns snow to falling water that freezes and hail to moisture enclosing airy material.
- In this edition“Snow” translates the printed noun; do not silently exchange it with hail.
- A place to beginSnow is explained through freezing in a text with a suspected interchange.
- English renderings
- snow
Meaning
Chiōn is snow. Its explanation varies among the meteorological reports.
Use in the book
The account attributed to Anaximenes assigns snow to falling water that freezes and hail to moisture enclosing airy material. Wachsmuth suspects that the names have changed places in transmission, but retains their printed order. The lexicon therefore records both the word’s meaning and the uncertainty affecting this particular explanation.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
“Snow” translates the printed noun; do not silently exchange it with hail.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 242–243, 247. The possible interchange is a textual problem, not a reason to rewrite the adopted Greek without notice.
From the book
The Green Notebook
Maurice de Guérin · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Snow
neige; blancheur; frimas
Neige names snow, while frimas refers more broadly to wintry frost or freezing weather.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordNeige names snow, while frimas refers more broadly to wintry frost or freezing weather.
- In GuérinThe March 1833 snow entries interrupt the hoped-for arrival of spring.
- In this editionThe English gives frost for frimas in the fir-tree passage.
- A reading distinctionThe sheltering girls are an explicit comparison for flowers, not an independently observed group of children.
Meaning
Neige names snow, while frimas refers more broadly to wintry frost or freezing weather. Guérin describes whiteness as both an atmospheric movement and an altered surface upon which trees, flowers, and birds become newly visible.
Use in the book
The March 1833 snow entries interrupt the hoped-for arrival of spring. Snow driven in dazzling whirlwinds melts as it falls; nevertheless, cold contracts both the writer and the recently arrived creatures. Two days later a silent white covering produces a severe contrast with black tree trunks, imagined as ebony columns on an ivory forecourt. The landscape’s transformation is at once visual, architectural, and emotional.
The observation does not end with desolation. Sparrows find shelter in thick firs, and primroses bent beneath snow become girls sheltering together under a white apron. The same weight that threatens the flowers also supplies the material of a tender comparison. Snow therefore tests a way of attending: the large prospect appears mournful, but closer inspection discovers local accommodations and forms of companionship.
Its visual shape survives after the winter weather has passed. White flowering apple trees look like snowballs in April. The comparison makes seasonal change legible through remembered appearances rather than treating winter and spring as sealed opposites.
Places to read
- 8 March 1833 · ¶1Wind-driven snow returns the season and the body to contraction
- 11 March 1833 · ¶1The black-and-white prospect yields to the firs’ protective interior
- 11 March 1833 · ¶2Bent primroses are seen as a small sheltering group
- 25 April 1833 · ¶1Apple blossom reuses snow’s rounded whiteness within spring abundance
Translation in this edition
The English gives frost for frimas in the fir-tree passage. Snow remains the visible burden, while frost names what cannot penetrate the shelter; the translation preserves those distinct functions.
Source note
The sheltering girls are an explicit comparison for flowers, not an independently observed group of children.