Gather close and listen well:
To you my story I will tell.
I am the goddess Tempestes.
I ravage lands and rock the seas.
Countless lives I swiftly plunder,
Countless ships I’ve torn asunder.
I make the cumulonimbi swarm.
I am the goddess of the storm.

Around 259 B.C.
I was strolling by the sea.
The tide lapped gently, glittering;
The peaceful birds were twittering.
But was too halcyon this scene?
Was the ocean too pristine?
My instincts throbbed with sickening joy.
The cyan sea was now my toy.

Tremulous, I gazed at my hand,
Slender, alabaster, wan.
I raised it to the serene skies
Bluer than the bluest eyes,
And seething, sparking magic I thrust
Across vast skies, upsetting mortal trust.

Moody, gray clouds growling low
Upset the picturesque tableau.
The sky convulsing rapidly
Was dark as dregs of tepid tea.
I let the cold air nip my face
As the glorious scene my eyes did trace.
Across the sea slashed frothing crest
As bruised and churning turned the rest.
Thunder shrieked as rain clouds wept.
Slicing rain stabbed waves that leapt.

Then searing lightning electrified
Stentorian heavens and pounding tide.
It ripped the sky to caliginous shreds
With jagged, fraying, blinding threads.
I’d made the cumulonimbi swarm;
I was the goddess of the storm.

Among the gusts of light and sound
A rocking, bucking boat I found.
Spumy crests buoyed flailing ship
As lightning lashed it like a whip.
Cornelius Scipio and his fleet
Were on that ship, on unsteady feet.

They wailed and rolled on hard, flat wood,
Quelling vomit, if they could.
And as the howling winds did blow
Rang the voice of L. Cornelius Scipio:

“Oh, great goddess Tempestes!
I crouch here on my hands and knees!
Your mighty storm will kill us all
Our limp bodies the tide will maul.
So if you let my poor fleet live
A glorious temple to you I’ll give.”

Fading was my gleeful malice.
I envisioned a resplendent palace.
Smiling, I lowered my outstretched palm;
The leaping waves became quite calm.
The sky sighed and relaxed its brow
As I accepted Scipio’s vow.

Well he sailed across calm seas;
I resisted every stormy sneeze.
Thus Corsica he soon defeated.
The bonny isle his fleet stampeded.
But Scipio’s resolve did not wilt:
A temple to me soon was built!

He styled my name as “Tempestates” –
In other words, as a chorus of me’s –
Which was popular at the time.
But Ovid wrote “Tempestes” in a rhyme.
Ovid also said the dedication day
Was the first of June, in the usual way.
But in his Fasti Antiates Maiores
December 23rd is my day of glories!
Renovation? More temples? You may never know
Like Lucius Cornelius Scipio.

You’ve gathered close and listened well;
To you my story I did tell.
I am the goddess Tempestes.
I ravage lands and rock the seas.
Countless lives I swiftly plunder,
Punctuated by wailing thunder.
I make the cumulonimbi swarm.
I am the goddess of the storm.