Every passage is a storm at sea, and most follow the same course: fair weather, a sudden wind, the ship overpowered and the crew in despair. They differ over who raises and who stills the storm. In Homer and Virgil hostile gods send it, and Herodotus names only an east wind. In the Psalm and St Mark the sea obeys God or Christ, and Bede tells of a hermit’s prayer doing the same. Ovid’s Ceyx drowns; St Paul’s ship is wrecked, but every life aboard is saved.
Chosen by hand, not counted: a passage is here when it is plainly about the topic, and the list is not every mention. Each is shown in the order the books were written, and each links to the section it is in.
Those who go down to the sea see the storm rise; they cry to the Lord, who stills it.
They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in the great waters: Psalm 106 →Neptune wrecks Ulysses’ raft; Ino gives him her veil and he swims for the Phaeacian shore.
… But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged his head and muttered to himself, saying, “Good heavens, so the gods have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it is … Book 5 →An east wind falls on the Persian fleet off Magnesia and wrecks the ships riding at anchor.
… For that night they lay thus; but at early dawn, after clear sky and windless calm, the sea began to be violently agitated and a great storm fell upon them with a strong East 192 Wind, that wind which they who dwell about those parts call Hellespontias. … Book 7 →Juno bribes Aeolus to loose the winds on the Trojan fleet; Neptune calms the sea.
… Thus rag’d the goddess; and, with fury fraught. The restless regions of the storms she sought, Where, in a spacious cave of living stone, The tyrant Aeolus, from his airy throne, With pow’r imperial curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. This way and that th’ impatient captives tend, And, pressing for release, the mountains rend. … Book 1 →Ceyx’s ship is overwhelmed by a storm at night, and he drowns calling Halcyone’s name.
… Either the smaller part, or, at least, not more than half her course, had now been cut by the ship, and both lands were at a great distance, when, towards night, the sea began to grow white with swelling waves, and the boisterous East wind to blow with greater violence. … Book 11 →A storm fills the boat; Jesus, woken, rebukes the wind, and there is a great calm.
And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. Mark 4 →The wind Euroaquilo drives Paul’s ship for days until it runs aground and breaks up off Melita.
But not long after, there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroaquilo. Acts 27 →Ethelwald’s prayer calms a tempest long enough for three brethren to reach land safely.
… I came,” says he, “to the island of Farne, with two others of the brethren, desiring to speak with the most reverend father, Ethelwald. Having been refreshed with his discourse, and asked for his blessing, as we were returning home, behold on a sudden, when we were in the midst of the sea, the fair weather in which we were sailing, was broken, and there arose so great and terrible a tempest, that neither sails nor … Book 5 →