Odyssey 4.566 · Book 4, lines 566–568
No snow, no storm, no rain
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οὐ νιφετός, οὔτʼ ἂρ χειμὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτʼ ὄμβρος ἀλλʼ αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀήτας Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους·
no snow is there, nor much storm, nor ever rain, but always Ocean sends up the breezes of the clear-blowing West Wind to refresh mankind;
Word by word
The setting
Proteus describes the climate of Elysium. It is defined by what it lacks — no snow, no winter storm, no downpour — and by the one thing it always has: the gentle West Wind blowing in off the world-encircling river Ocean.
A note on this passage
The blessed place is painted almost entirely in negatives. Homer names its weather by subtracting the miseries of the real one: no snow, no heavy storm, never any rain. Only after the subtractions does he add the single positive — a steady, cooling West Wind.
It is a farmer's and sailor's paradise, imagined by people who knew hard winters and drenching gales. The Odyssey is a poem of exposure to weather — wreck, cold, the open sea — and Elysium is quietly its exact inverse: the one place where the sky can never hurt you.
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