Favonius
The personification of the west wind, the Roman counterpart of the Greek Zephyrus.
One of the four chief winds of the ancients, aquilo, the "eagle-wind," the north-easterly Tramontana; voltumus (of uncertain derivation, perhaps the "vulture-wind"), the south-easterly; auster, the "scorching" southwest wind, the Sirocco; favonius, the "favourable" north-west wind blowing from the Tyrrhene Sea.
From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and MythologyFrom The Art Of Preserving Health by John Armstrong
.To glowing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when th' invigorated year
Emerges; when Favonius flush'd with love,
Toyful and young, in every breeze descends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride;
Then, shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks;
And learn, with wise humanity, to check
The lust of blood. Now pregnant earth commits
A various offspring to th' indulgent sky:
Now bounteous nature feeds with lavish hand
The prone creation; yields what once suffic'd
Their dainty sovereign, when the world was young;
Ere yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seiz'd
The human breast.—Each rolling month matures
The food that suits it most; so does each clime.
Zephyrus was the lover of Flora. Milton alludes to them in “Paradise Lost,” where he describes Adam waking and contemplating Eve still asleep.
“...He on his side
Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love,
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty which; whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice,
Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: ‘Awake!
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,
Heaven’s last, best gift, my ever-new delight.’”
