From the book
The Golden Chain of Homer
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger) · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSnow and hail belong to the weather-born forms of the common world-seed.
- In the Golden ChainThey illustrate both atmospheric generation and the universality of putrefaction.
- TranslationThe heading gathers related forms while preserving their different local roles.
- A place to readB1C16S001: all these meteoric waters undergo putrefaction.
Meaning
Snow and hail belong with dew, rain, sleet, and frost among the meteors formed from circulating vapours. Meteor here denotes an atmospheric phenomenon or product, not specifically a stone arriving from space. These bodies are different visible conditions of waters that the author calls the regenerated common seed, world-spirit, or Chaos (B1C06S003; B1C10S001).
Their inclusion prevents the universal argument from depending solely on warm rain. Snow-water can be used as a universal watery subject, while hail enters the speculative explanation of the violent action of nitre and its counterpart in air. The pair therefore has a common cosmological ground but different emphases in particular chapters (B1C11S001–002; B2C05S002).
Use in the book
The chapter on air traces the thickening of upper and lower vapours into several atmospheric forms. Their fall carries the celestial and terrestrial exchange back to water and earth, where further fermentation and specified generation occur. The introductory poem likewise names frost, dew, snow, and rain as companions of the volatile world-spirit. These associations make winter weather part of the same chain as more obviously fertile spring moisture (PRE03S001; B1C07S001; B1C08S001).
The claim that hail demonstrates nitre and salt in the atmosphere belongs to the author’s historical weather theory. He reasons from apparent parallels between fulminating material action and lightning, thunder, and hail. The explanatory force comes from his assumed common matter and degrees of volatility, not from an analysis that would satisfy present meteorology. A lexicon can state the inference clearly while avoiding the omitted or dangerous operational material accompanying it (B1C11S001–004).
The doctrine of putrefaction then expressly includes dew, rain, snow, hail, and frost without distinction. Their changes are said to separate subtle from coarse and show at least a faint smell. Book Two permits rainwater or snow-water in the anatomy of regenerated Chaos and uses such waters to supply a missing volatile to dry animal or vegetable parts. Universality does not make each state immediately equally effective upon every body: the final distinctions between volatile and fixed solvents still apply. Snow and hail thus widen the scope of the common seed without suspending the rule of appropriate degrees (B1C16S001; B2C05S002; B2C08S004–005; B2C06S005).
Places to read
- Golden-Chain Poem · §1The introductory poem includes snow and frost among the spirit’s companions.
- Book I · Ch. 10 · §1Snow, sleet, frost, and hail join dew and rain as regenerated seed.
- Book I · Ch. 11 · §1Hail is treated as evidence within the nitre theory of weather.
- Book I · Ch. 16 · §1The universal claim that these weather-born waters putrefy.
- Book II · Ch. 8 · §4Snow-water can supply a missing volatile principle.
Translation in this edition
Schnee, Hagel, and Reiff are attested weather-names; Schnee-Wasser specifies the liquid used in the later discussion. The phrase “snow and hail” is an editorial access heading, not a claim that the original establishes one compound technical term. “Meteors” must also retain its historical breadth. The source groups several weather-products by their common origin while continuing to name their distinct forms, which the translation should not flatten into rain alone (B1C10S001; B2C05S002).