Throw the mighty ocean into affright.
3.2
Spread through heaven & earth, the Divine Word
Shall give the substance, veiled in mystery :
A body, spirit, soul, as almighty
Here beneath its feet as on heaven’s throne.
3.3
Mars & Mercury & the Moon conjoined,
Extreme drought shall afflict the southern climes :
Earthquakes reported in furthest Asia :
Corinth, Ephesus then in wretched plight.
3.4
When eclipse of sun & moon draws nigh,
With no major interval between each,
Cold & drought & danger at the confines,
Even where the oracle first found speech.
3.5
Near far from the failing of these two great lights
Which shall take place between April & March :
What prices ! But two great ones good & kind
By land & sea shall bring help to all parts.
3.6
The lightning shall crash into the closed church,
Citizens within shall be overwhelmed :
The waters flood horses, cattle, walls, men,
The weakest felled by hunger, mud & thirst.
3.7
As they flee, sky-fire alights on their pikes :
Coming conflict presaged by ravens’ flight :
Calls from earth for intervention divine,
When the enemy troops draw into sight.
3.8
Allied with their neighbors, the Cimbrians
Shall unpeople Spain almost to a man :
Folk amassed in Guyenne & Limousin
Shall enter into league & join their band.
3.9
Bordeaux, Rouen & La Rochelle in league
Shall hold the land around the ocean sea :
The English, Bretons & Flemish in league
Shall drive them almost as far as Roanne.
3.10
Blood & famine, major calamity
About to strike the coast a seventh time :
Monaco starved, fort seized, captivity,
Its lord dragged by hook in an iron cage.
3.11
The sword-clash in the sky proceeds apace,
The tree in the city square has fallen :
Vermin, scabies, blade, a torch to the face,
Thus the Adriatic monarch succumbs.
3.12
The swelling of the Eb., Po, Tag., Tib., Rhône
As Arezzo’s & Leman’s waters roil :
In the two great cities of the Garonne,
Bodies seized, drowned. Dividing human spoils.
3.13
Lightning melting the gold & silver chest,
One of the captives shall the other eat :
The city’s strongman shall be laid to rest,
When sailors swim from their sunken fleet.
3.14
From a minor branch of a valiant lord
Of France, from an unlucky father born :
He shall know honors & riches when old,
Though a fool’s advice cause him untold woe.
3.15
From courage, strength, glory the realm shall stray,
Enemies converging from every side :
When the king dies, a child France shall betray :
This the mighty regent shall not abide.
3.16
The English prince, Mars at mid-sky his sign,
Shall seek out the fortune he has in store :
One duelist shall pierce the other’s spleen,
Hated by him, but by his mother adored.
3.17
The Aventine Hill seen aflame at night,
Above Flanders skies shall suddenly dim :
The monarch then driving out his nephew,
The church people then making quite a din.
3.18
After a somewhat longish rain of milk,
The lightning shall be general over Reims :
Alas, what a bloodbath being prepared !
King’s father & son shall not dare advance.
3.19
On Lucca blood & milk down shall rain,
Shortly before the change of the praetor :
A sign of famine & drought, war & plague,
Where death comes to their prince & great rector.
3.20
In the lands of the great Baetic river,
Far from Iberia, in Grenada,
The crosses shall be repulsed by Muslims :
3.21
At Crustumerium near the Adriatic
There shall appear a fish of horrid look,
With a human face & tail aquatic,
Who’ll be dragged from the waters by a hook.
3.22
The assault upon the city shall last six days :
A fierce & bitter battle shall be waged :
Three shall give it up & their skins be saved :
No quarter for the rest, all hacked & flayed.
3.23
France, if you pass beyond the Ligurian sea,
Within isles & seas you shall be enclosed :
Muslim foe, in Adriatic more so :
You shall gnaw at horse & donkey bones.
3.24
The enterprise shall end in confusion,
Great loss of life & treasure beyond price :
Beware of your overextension :
France, just try to remember my advice.
3.25
He who shall take up the throne of Navarre
When Sicily & Naples are allied,
From Oloron, Foix shall hold Landes, Bigorre,
Although very much on the Spanish side.
3.26
Of kings & princes images they’ll unfurl,
Haruspices, augurs, their crooks raised high :
Victims’ horns, gold, lapis lazuli, pearl,
Entrails to be interpreted for signs.
3.27
A Libyan prince with influence in the West
Shall so inflame François for Arab matters
That in his knowledge of letters he shall abet
The translation of its language into French.
3.28
From a puny land & of poor parentage,
Let into the empire by the back door :
A young female reigning on for ages,
Nothing worse ever witnessed on a throne.
3.29
The two nephews from a different place,
Their fathers fallen in battle at sea,
Shall come, scions of a warrior race,
Avenge the insult : enemy defeat.
3.30
He who in the battle snatched the prize
From a far finer swordsman & fighter
Shall be attacked in bed by six at night,
Naked, unarmed, much taken by surprise.
3.31
On the Median, Arab, Armenian plains
Three times in battle shall two great hosts meet :
Near the banks of the Araxes the main
Of great Süleyman goes down in defeat.
3.32
He who put all Aquitaine in the grave
Shall make his way into the Tuscan lands,
When in Germany Mars prepares his reign
Or the country of the Mantuan clan.
3.33
When the wolf enters through the city gate,
The enemy shall lie quite close at hand :
Foreign army laying waste to the land,
Alpine walls traversed by a friendly state.
3.34
When the eclipse of the sun takes place,
An omen in broad daylight shall be seen :
It shall be interpreted the wrong way :
No one prepared : prices so unforeseen.
3.35
At Europe’s farthermost western reaches,
To poor folk a small infant
shall be born :
He shall seduce great crowds with his speeches,
His great fame spreading to Orient shores.
3.36
Not dead when buried, just apoplectic,
He shall be found to have his hands all gnawed,
When the city condemns the heretic
Who, so it seemed to them, had changed their laws.
3.37
Before the assault an exhortation :
Kite seized by Eagle, ambushed by surprise :
Ancient wall crumbling under cannon fire :
Little mercy shown : total devastation.
3.38
The French people & the nation that lies
Beyond the mounts, all dead, captive, done for :
In the month opposite, near harvest time,
The leaders shall urge them into accord.
3.39
The seven as three shall come to agree
To subjugate the mounts of Apennines :
But the storm & Ligurian dastardy
Shall smash them all into smithereens.
3.40
The great theater shall be fitted afresh,
The nets already stretched, dais in place,
Causing the earlier structure to crash,
The old cracked beams breaking under the weight.
3.41
Council elects a hunchback to a seat,
On earth no more hideous monster seen :
The prelate’s eye smashed by a blow most fleet,
The traitor believed loyal to the king.
3.42
The child is born with two teeth in its throat,
In Tuscany the stones fall just like rain :
A few years later, no barley, no wheat
To feed those whom hunger renders faint.
3.43
Folk from the vicinity of Tarn, Lot & Garonne,
Beware of passing over the Apennines :
Your tomb shall lie near Ancona & Rome,
The black curlybeard shall raise the trophy.
3.44
When the pet dog rushes up to the man
And after yelps & leaps proceeds to speak :
Lightning having so struck the virgin,
She hangs there in thin air, swept off her feet.
3.45
When the five strangers have entered the church,
Their blood shall profane the holy ground :
Harsh example for the people of Toulouse
Of one who shall come to destroy their laws.
3.46
To us (of Plancus town) the sky presages
By its clear signs & by its fixed stars
The approach of the age of sudden change,
None for the better & none for the worse.
3.47
The agèd monarch driven from his realm
Shall be searching for succor in the East :
Fearing crosses, he shall furl his ensign
And seek a safe haven in Mytilene.
3.48
For the seven hundred captives in chains
Lots shall be drawn to execute the half :
The hoped-for rescue is quick to arrive,
But not before some fifteen are slain.
3.49
You shall change for the worse, kingdom of Gaul :
To a foreign place Empire is transferred :
You shall know other customs, other laws :
Rouen & Chartres shall do you much worse.
3.50
The government of that mighty town,
Too stubborn to withdraw beyond the gates
As so summoned by the king’s trumpet call :
The town shall regret this, ladder at wall.
3.51
Paris plots to commit a great murder,
Blois shall make quite sure that the thing shall play :
Orléans shall want its own chief back in place,
Angers, Troyes, Langres shall make them pay.
3.52
In Campania it shall not stop raining,
In Puglia drought shall be no stranger :
Cock shall see the Eagle waver on wing
And the Lion put him in extreme danger.
3.53
When the strongest lord seizes the prize
That is Nuremberg, Augsburg & Bâle,
Frankfurt’s seat retaken by Agrippine,
With Flemish help, they’ll cross into Wales.
3.54
One of the noblest lords to Spain shall hie
And shall bleed its veins again & again,
Passing his troops over the mountains high,
Laying waste to all, then in peace to reign.
3.55
The year one eye over all France shall reign,
The court shall find itself quite befuddled :
The lord from Blois shall have killed his friend,
The realm troubled & the fears redoubled.
3.56
At Montauban, Nîmes, Avignon, Béziers,
Plague, thunder & hail at the end of March :
Paris bridge, Lyon wall, Montpellier shall fall,
Six hundred seven plus twenty-three parts.
3.57
Seven times you’ll see the British people change,
Stained with blood, in two hundred ninety years,
Not that they’ll be free, under German sway :
Bastarnian climes being what Aries fears.
3.58
Near the Rhine & the mountains of Noricum
Shall be born a prince of a line come late,
Who shall so defend SAUROM. & Pannon.
That one shall know nothing about his fate.
3.59
Barbarian empire usurped by the third
Who shall kill a good lot of his own kin :
By him the fourth, an old man, is struck dead,
For fear that close kin do themselves in.
3.60
A great proscription throughout Asia,
Even Mysia, Lysia & Pamphylia :
In expiation one shall shed the blood
Of a most unmerciful young black buck.
3.61
The mighty host & sect of cross-bearers
Shall rise up in Mesopotamia :
Light horse from the next river over
Shall consider this religion its foe.
3.62
Being shut off from the Tyrrhenian Sea,
From the Duero he shall cross the Pyrenees :
Pressed for time & disguising his goal,
He maneuvers his way to Carcassonne.
3.63
The decline of Rome shall be quite profound,
Its great neighbor following down its route :
All the covert hates & civic disputes
Alone hindering the idiocies of clowns.
3.64
Persia’s chief shall load up great OLXAΔDES
With Parthians & Medes, a fleet of triremes
Against the Muslims, & sack the Cyclades :
At the great Ionian port they’ll be at ease.
3.65
When the mighty Roman’s tomb is dug up,
The pope elected the following day :
He shall not be approved by the senate,
His poisoned blood within the sacred cup.
3.66
The great bailiff of Orléans put to death
By someone with much vengeance in his veins :
He shall not die a deserved death nor by chance,
But bound hand & foot, a poor captive man.
3.67
A new sect of philosophers who hold
Death, gold, honors & riches in disdain
Shall extend beyond the German mountains,
Aided by those quick to follow their ways.
3.68
A leaderless people from Italy & Spain
Shall die, slaughtered in the Chersonese :
Their battle plan undone by daft mistakes,
The blood flow
ing freely through the streets.
3.69
The great army led by the stripling youth
Shall surrender into enemy hands :
But the old man born back at the Half-Swine
Shall make sure Chalon & Mâcon are friends.
3.70
All of Great Britain including England
Shall come to be full flooded by the seas :
In Ausonia, so at war is the new league
They shall ally themselves each against each.
3.71
Those trapped within towns long held under siege
Shall gain vim & vigor against their foes,
While all those left outside, famished & weak,
Shall just starve to death as never before.
3.72
The good old man shall be buried alive
By the great river under a cloud of doubt :
The bad old man whom wealth raised to such heights,
The entire ransom of gold seized en route.
3.73
When the lame-footed one ascends the throne,
A bastard kinsman shall play his foe :
He & the kingdom becoming so scabby
That in the end things shall fare most badly.
3.74
Naples, Florence, Faenza & Imola
Shall be widely criticized & deplored,
People complaining they insulted its lord
When rescuing the wretches of Nola.
3.75
PAV., Verona, Vicenza, Saragoss.,
All their lands soaked with the blood of long swords :
A great plague shall strike the Italian coast,
Help at hand but remedies quite remote.
3.76
Germany shall see the birth of divers sects
Quite like the paganism of ancient times :
Conquering hearts & content with small receipts,
They shall return to paying the true tithe.
3.77
In the third clime comprehended by Aries,