The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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217.  
EXAMPLE OF THE LIGHTNING IN CLOUDS.  
[O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable  
of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life  
of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to  
procreative nature.]  
Ah! how many a time the shoals of terrified dolphins and the huge  
tunny-fish were seen to flee before thy cruel fury, to escape;  
whilst thy fulminations raised in the sea a sudden tempest with  
buffeting and submersion of ships in the great waves; and filling  
the uncovered shores with the terrified and desperate fishes which  
fled from thee, and left by the sea, remained in spots where they  
became the abundant prey of the people in the neighbourhood.  
O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how many  
nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states and of  
various events have happened since the wondrous forms of this fish  
perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by  
time thou liest patiently in this confined space with bones stripped  
and bare; serving as a support and prop for the superimposed  
mountain.  
[Footnote: The character of the handwriting points to an early  
950  


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