An imagined late antique poet holds a clear crystal up to the light.

A south wind inside the crystal

Claudian (c. 370–c. 404) was a late antique poet, probably from Egypt, who wrote in Latin at the western Roman court. Seven of his short poems concern a crystal enclosing water. In the second he addresses the water itself.[1]

Water in a prison of its own kind

The hand meets a hard surface. The eye sees movement beyond it. Claudian calls both things water. The transparent shell becomes a prison whose walls are kin to what they enclose. The whole epigram unfolds from that single observation.[1]

Waters that shelter waters in a prison of their own kind,
waters that are now what once you were,
what art united you? By what craft of cold
did this wondrous stone grow stiff and yet stay wet?
What warmth enclosed within keeps the waters safe?
What south wind melted the ice inside?
What causes made this gem, astir with a secret tide,
now freeze, now melt again in frost?[1]

Weather in miniature

The south wind brings something we usually feel outdoors into the narrow space of the stone. How could a warm wind have got there if the crystal is closed on every side? Claudian keeps his question open into the final line. The eye can look straight through the crystal while the making of its little moving world eludes it.[1]