afterwards will conceive two principal children. But, she being in great
danger, the girl she will give birth to with risk at her age of death in
the eighteenth year, and not possible to outlive the thirty-sixth, will
leave three males and one female, and he will have two who never had
any of the same father. The three brothers will be so different, though
united and agreed, that the three and four parts of Europe will tremble.
By the youngest in years will the Christian monarchy be sustained and
augmented; heresies spring up and suddenly cast down, the Arabs driven
back, kingdoms united, and new laws promulgated. Of the other children
the first shall possess the furious crowned Lions, holding their paws
upon the bold escutcheon. The second, accompanied by the Latins, shall
penetrate so far that a second trembling and furious descent shall be
made, descending Mons Jovis [at Barcelona] to mount the Pyrenees, shall
not be translated to the antique monarchy, and a third inundation of
human blood shall arise, and March for a long while will not be found in
Lent. The daughter shall be given for the preservation of the Christian
Church, the dominator falling into the Pagan sect of new infidels, and
she will have two children, the one fidelity, the other infidelity, by
the confirmation of the Catholic Church. The other, who to his great
confusion and tardy repentance wished to ruin her, will have three
regions over a wide extent of leagues, that is to say, Roumania, Germany,
and Spain, which will entail great intricacy of military handling,
stretching from the 50th to the 52nd degree of latitude. And they will
have to respect the more distant religions of Europe and the north above
the 48th degree of latitude, which at first in a vain timidity will
tremble, and then the more western, southern, and eastern will tremble.
Their power will become such, that what is brought about by union and
concord will prove insuperable by warlike conquest. By nature they will
be equal, but exceedingly different in faith.
After this the sterile Dame, of greater power than the second, shall be
received by two nations, by the first made obstinate by him who had power
over all, by the second, and third, that shall extend his forces towards
the circuit of the east of Europe; [arrived] there his standards will
stop and succumb, but by sea he will run on to Trinacria and the Adriatic
with his mirmidons. The Germans will succumb wholly and the Barbaric sect
will be disquieted and driven back by the whole of the Latin race. Then
shall begin the grand Empire of Antichrist in the Atila and Xerxes, [who
is] to descend with innumerable multitudes, so that the coming of the
Holy Spirit, issuing from the 48th degree, shall make a transmigration,
chasing away the abomination of Antichrist, that made war upon the royal
person of the great vicar of Jesus Christ, and against His Church, and
reign _per tempus, et in occasione temporis_ [for a time, and to the end
of time]. This will be preceded by an eclipse of the sun, more obscure
and tenebrose than has ever been since the creation of the world, up to
the death and passion of Jesus Christ, and from thence till now. There
will be in the month of October a grand revolution [translation] made,
such that one would think that the librating body of the earth had lost
its natural movement in the abyss of perpetual darkness. There will be
seen precursive signs in the spring-time, and after extreme changes
ensuing, reversal of kingdoms, and great earthquakes [_i.e._ wars].
All this accompanied with the procreations of the New Babylon [Paris],
a miserable prostitute big with the abomination of the first holocaust
[death of Louis XVI]. It will only continue for seventy-three years seven
months.
Then there will issue from the stock so long time barren, proceeding from
the 50th degree, [one] who will renovate the whole Christian Church. A
great peace, union, and concord will then spring up between some of the
children of races [long] opposed to each other and separated by diverse
kingdoms. Such a peace shall be set up, that the instigator and promoter
of military faction by means of the diversity of religions, shall dwell
attached to the bottom of the abyss, and united to the kingdom of the
furious, who shall counterfeit the wise. The countries, towns, cities,
and provinces that had forsaken their old customs to free themselves,
enthralling themselves more deeply, shall become secretly weary of their
liberty, and, true religion lost, shall commence by striking off to the
left, to return more than ever to the right.
Then replacing holiness, so long desecrated by their former writings
[circulating slanders], afterwards the result will be that the great
dog will issue as an irresistible mastiff [Napoleon?] who will destroy
everything, even to all that may have been prepared in time past, till
the churches will be restored as at first, and the clergy reinstated in
their pristine condition; till it lapses again into whoredom and luxury,
to commit and perpetrate a thousand crimes. And, drawing near to another
desolation, then, when she shall be at her highest and sublimest point
of dignity, the kings and generals [_mains militaires_] will come up
[against her], and her two swords will be taken from her, and nothing
will be left her but the semblance of them. [The following paragraph
I can make nothing of, so I give it in the words of Garencières and
in inverted commas.] “From which by the means of the crookedness that
draweth them, the people causing it to go straight, and not willing to
submit unto them by the end opposite to the sharp hand that toucheth the
ground they shall provoke.” Until there shall be born unto the branch
a long time sterile, one who shall deliver the French people from the
benign slavery that they voluntarily submitted to, putting himself under
the protection of Mars, and stripping Jupiter [Napoleon I.] of all his
honours and dignities, for the city constituted free and seated in
another narrow Mesopotamia. The chief and governor shall be cast from the
midst, and set in a place of the air, ignorant of the conspiracy of the
conspirators [Fouché, Duc d’Otranto, etc.] with the second Thrasibulus,
who for a long time had prepared all this. Then shall the impurities and
abominations be with great shame set forth and manifested to the darkness
of the veiled light, shall cease towards the end of his reign, and the
chiefs of the Church shall evince but little of the love of God, whilst
many of them shall apostatize from the true faith.
Of the three sects [Lutheran, Catholic, and Mahometan], that which is
in the middle, by the action of its own worshippers, will be thrown a
little into decadence. The first totally throughout Europe, and the
chief part of Africa exterminated by the third, by means of the poor in
spirit, who by the madness engendered of libidinous luxury, will commit
adultery [_i.e._ apostatize]. The people will pull down the pillar, and
chase away the adherents of the legislators, and it shall seem, from
the kingdoms weakened by the Orientals, that God the Creator has loosed
Satan from the infernal prisons, to make room for the great Dog and Dohan
[Gog and Magog], which will make so great and injurious a breach in the
Churches, that neither the reds nor the whites, who are without eyes and
without hands [meaning the latter Bourbons, “who learn nothing and forget
nothing”], cannot judge of the situation, and their power will be taken
from them. Then shall commence a persecution of the Church such as never
was before. Whilst this is enacting, such a pestilence shall spring up
that out of three parts of mankind two shall be removed. To such a length
will this proceed that one will neither know nor recognize the fields
or houses, and grass will grow in the streets of the cities as high as
a man’s knees. To the clergy there shall be a total desolation, and the
martial men shall usurp what shall come back from the City of the Sun
[Rome], and from Malta, and the Islands of Hières [off Marseilles], and
the great chain of the port shall be opened that takes its name from the
marine ox [Bosphorus].
A new incursion shall be made from the maritime shores, eager to give the
leap of liberty since the first taking by the Mahometans. Their assaults
shall not be at all in vain, and in the place where the habitation of
Abraham was, it shall be assailed by those who hold the Jovialists
[followers of Jupiter (Napoleon I.?)] in reverence. The city of Achem [in
the Island of Sumatra] shall be encompassed and assaulted on all sides
by a great force of armed men. Their maritime forces shall be weakened
by the Westerns. Upon this kingdom a great desolation shall come, and
the great cities shall be depopulated, and such as enter in shall come
under the vengeance of the wrath of God. The Holy Sepulchre, for so long
a period an object of great veneration, shall remain exposed to the
blighting dew of evening under the stars of heaven, and of the sun and
moon. The holy place shall be converted into a stable for cattle small
and large, and applied to other base purposes. Oh, what a calamitous
time will that be for women with child! for then the Sultan of the East
will be vanquished, driven for the most part by the Northern and Western
men, who will kill him, overthrow him, and put the rest to flight, and
his children, the offspring of many women, imprisoned. Then will come to
its fulfilment the prophecy of the Royal Prophet, “_Ut audiret gemitus
compeditorum, et solveret filios interemptorum._”[40]
What great oppression shall then fall upon the princes and rulers of
kingdoms, even on those who are maritime and Oriental, their tongues
intermingled from all nations of the earth! Tongues of the Latin nations,
mingled with Arabic and North-African communication. All the Eastern
kings will be driven away, overthrown, and exterminated, not at all by
means of the kings of the North and the drawing near of our age, but
by means of the three secretly united who seek out death and snares by
ambush sprung upon one another. The renewal of this Triumvirate shall
endure for seven years, while its renown shall spread all over the world,
and the sacrifice of the holy and immaculate wafer shall be upheld. Then
shall two lords of the North conquer the Orientals, and so great report
and tumultuary warfare shall issue from these that all the East shall
tremble at the noise of these two brothers of the North, who are yet
not brothers. And because, Sire, by this discourse I almost introduce
confusion into these predictions as to the time when the event of each
shall fall out; for the detailed account of the time that follows is very
little conformable, if at all, to what I gave above, that indeed could
not err, being by astronomic rule and consonant with the Holy Scriptures
themselves.
Had I wished to give to every quatrain its detailed date, it could
easily have been done, but it would not have been agreeable to all,
and still less to interpret them, Sire, until your Majesty should have
fully sanctioned me to do this, in order not to furnish calumniators
with an opportunity to injure me. Always reckoning the years since the
creation of the world to the birth of Noah as being 1506 years, and
from that to the completion of the building of the ark at the period
of the universal deluge 600 years elapsed (let them be solar years, or
lunar, or mixed), I hold that the Scripture takes them to be solar. At
the conclusion of this 600 years, Noah entered the ark to escape the
deluge. The deluge was universal over the earth, and lasted one year and
two months. From the conclusion of the deluge to the birth of Abraham
there elapsed 295 years, and 100 years from that to the birth of Isaac.
From Isaac to Jacob 60 years. From the time he went into Egypt until his
coming out of it was 130 years; and from the entry of Jacob into Egypt
to his exit was 430 years; and from that to the building of the Temple
by Solomon in the fortieth year of his reign, makes 480 years. From the
building of the Temple to Jesus Christ, according to the supputation of
the Hierographs, there passed 490 years. Thus by this calculation that
I have made, collecting it out of the sacred writings, there are about
4173 years and eight months less or more. Now, from Jesus Christ, in that
there is such a diversity of opinion, I pass it by, and having calculated
the present prophecies in accordance with the order of the chain which
contains the revolution, and the whole by astronomical rule, together
with my own hereditary instinct. After some time, and including in it the
period Saturn takes to turn between the 7th of April up to the 25th of
August; Jupiter from the 14th of June to the 7th of October; Mars from
the 17th of April to the 22nd of June; Venus from the 9th of April to the
22nd of May; Mercury from the 3rd of February to the 24th of the same;
afterwards from the 1st of June to the 24th of the same; and from the
25th of September to the 16th of October, Saturn in Capricorn, Jupiter
in Aquarius, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Pisces, Mercury within a month
in Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces; the moon in Aquarius, the Dragon’s
head in Libra, the tail in her sign opposite. Following the conjunction
of Jupiter to Mercury, with a quadrin aspect of Mars to Mercury, and the
head of the Dragon shall be with a conjunction of Sol with Jupiter, the
year shall be peaceful without eclipse.
Then will be the commencement [of a period] that will comprehend in
itself what will long endure [_i.e._ the vulgar advent of the French
Revolution], and in its first year there shall be a great persecution of
the Christian Church, fiercer than that in Africa [by the Vandals from
1439 to 1534], and this will burst out [_durera_] the year one thousand
seven hundred and ninety-two; they will think it to be a renovation of
time. After this the people of Rome will begin to reconstitute themselves
[in 1804, when Napoleon is emperor], and to chase away the obscurity of
darkness, recovering some share of their ancient brightness, but not
without much division and continual changes. Venice after that, in great
force and power, shall raise her wings very high, not much short of the
force of ancient Rome. At that time great Byzantine sails, associated
with the Piedmontese by the help and power of the North, will so restrain
them that the two Cretans will not be able to maintain their faith. The
arks built by the ancient warriors will accompany them to the waves of
Neptune. In the Adriatic there will be such permutations, that what was
united will be separated, and that will be reduced to a house which
before was a great city, including the Pampotan and Mesopotamia of
Europe, to 45, and others to 41, 42, and 47. And in that time and those
countries the infernal power will set the power of the adversaries of
its law against the Church of Jesus Christ. This will constitute the
second Antichrist, which will persecute that Church and its true vicar,
by means of the power of the temporal kings, who in their ignorance will
be reduced by tongues that will cut more than any sword in the hands of a
madman.
The said reign of Antichrist will only last to the death of him who was
born near the [commencement] of the century, and of the other in the
city of Plancus [Lyons], accompanied by him the elect of Modena, Fulcy
by Ferara, upheld by the Adriatic Piedmontese, and the proximity of the
great Trinacria [Sicily]. Afterwards the Gallic Ogmion shall pass the
Mount Jovis [Barcelona], accompanied by so great a number that from
afar the Empire shall be presented with its grand law, and then and for
some time after shall be profusely shed the blood of the innocent by
the guilty recently elevated to power. Then by great deluges the memory
of things contained in such instruments shall suffer incalculable loss,
even to the Alphabet itself. This will happen among the Northerns. By
the Divine Will once again Satan will be bound, and universal peace
established amongst mankind, and the Church of Jesus Christ delivered
from all tribulation, although the Azostains [debauched voluptuaries]
would desire to mix with the honey the gall of their pestilent seduction.
This will be near the seventh millenary, when the sanctuary of Jesus
Christ will no longer be trodden down by the infidels who come from the
North; the world [will be then] approaching its great conflagration,
although by my supputation in my prophecies, the course of time runs much
farther on.
In the epistle that some years since I dedicated to my son Cæsar
Nostradamus, I have openly enough declared some points without presage.
But here, Sire, are comprised many great and marvellous events to
come, which those who follow after us shall see. And during the said
astrological supputation, harmonized with the sacred Scriptures, the
persecution of the Ecclesiastics shall take its rise in the power of the
kings of the North, united with the Easterns. And this persecution shall
last eleven years, or somewhat less, by which time the chief Northern
king shall pass away, which years being run, a united Southern king
shall succeed, which shall still more fiercely persecute the clergy of
the Church for the space of three years by the Apostolical seduction of
one who will take away all the absolute power from the Church Militant,
and holy people of God who observe its ritual, and the whole order of
religion shall be greatly persecuted and so afflicted that the blood
of true ecclesiastics shall float everywhere. To one of those horrible
temporal kings such praise shall be given by his adherents that he will
have shed more human blood of innocent ecclesiastics, than any could
do of wine. This king will commit crimes against the Church that are
incredible. Human blood will flow in the public streets and churches,
like water after impetuous rain, and will crimson with blood the
neighbouring rivers, and by another naval war redden the sea to such
a degree that one king shall say to another, “_Bellis rubuit navalibus
æquor._”[41] Then in the same year and those following there will ensue
the most horrible pestilence and the most astonishing on account of the
famine that will precede, and such tribulation that nothing approaching
it ever happened since the first foundation of the Christian Church;
this also throughout all the Latin regions, leaving traces in all the
countries under the rule of Spain.
Then the third King of the North [Russia?], hearing the complaint of the
people from [whom he derives] his principal title, will raise up a mighty
army, and pass through the limits [_destroits_] of his last progenitors
and great-grandfathers, to him who will [_qui_ for _lui qui_] replace
almost everything in its old condition. The great Vicar of the Cope shall
be put back to his pristine state; but, desolated and abandoned by all,
will return to the sanctuary [that was] destroyed by Paganism, when the
Old and New Testament will be thrust out and burnt. After that Antichrist
will be the infernal prince. Then at this last epoch, all the kingdoms
of Christianity, as well as of the infidel world, will be shaken during
the space of twenty-five years, and the wars and battles will be more
grievous, and the towns, cities, castles, and all other edifices will
be burnt, desolated, and destroyed with much effusion of vestal blood,
married women and widows violated, sucking children dashed and broken
against the walls of towns; and so many evils will be committed by means
of Satan, the prince infernal, that nearly all the world will become
undone and desolated. Before the events occur certain strange birds
[imperial eagles] will cry in the air, “_To-day! to-day!_” and after a
given time will disappear [June, 1815]. After this has endured for a
certain length of time [twenty-five years he has said before, 1790 to
1815], there will be almost renewed another reign of Saturn, the age of
gold [this might be the discovery of California, but for what follows].
God the Creator shall say, hearing the affliction of His people, Satan
shall be precipitated and bound in the bottomless abyss, and then shall
commence between God and men a universal peace. There he shall abide for
the space of a thousand years, and shall turn his greatest force against
the power of the Church, and shall then be bound again.
How justly are all these figures adapted by the divine letters to visible
celestial things, that is to say, by Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and
others in conjunction with them, as may be seen more at large by some
of the quatrains! I would have calculated it more deeply, and adapted
the one to the other; but, seeing, O most serene King, that some who are
given to censure will raise a difficulty, I shall take the opportunity
to retire my pen and seek my nocturnal repose. “_Multa etiam, O Rex
potentissime præclara, et sane in brevi ventura, sed omnia in hâc tuâ
Epistola, innectere non possumus, nec volumus, sed ad intellegenda quædam
facta, horrida fata pauca libanda sunt, quamvis tanta sit in omnes tua
amplitudo et humanitas homines, deosque pietas, ut solos amplissimo
et Christianissimo Regis nomine, et ad quem summa totius religionis
auctoritas deferatur dignus esse videare._”[42] But I shall only
beseech you, O most clement King, by this your singular and most prudent
goodness, to understand rather the desire of my heart, and the sovereign
wish I have to obey your most excellent Majesty, ever since my eyes
approached so nearly to your solar splendour, than the grandeur of my
work can attain to or acquire.
_Faciebat_ MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS.
_Solonæ Petræ Provincæ._
From Salon this 27th June, 1558.
MAGIC.
Before we enter upon the historical application of those quatrains which
admit of interpretation, it will be well to devote a little attention
to the views of magic entertained by Nostradamus, to learn from his
own mouth what class of readers he proposed to address, and to gather,
as far as we may be able, in what manner he proceeded to cultivate the
spirit of prophecy and the divine gift with which he thought himself to
be endowed. Were he even as certainly an impostor as Cagliostro, this
inquiry would have an interest of its own attaching to it; but if we can
for a moment suppose that he genuinely believed himself to be endowed
with a faculty of divination, the investigation of that assumption on
his part would present a considerable psychological interest merely as a
human phenomenon. On the other hand, if he were a man truly gifted with
forecast, I do not know that, in this age of scepticism as to things
spiritual, anything more wholesome could be proposed to our contemplation
than a prophetic record fulfilling itself before the eyes of disbelievers
and gainsayers; who, wishing to scoff and desiring to suppress such
things, find themselves utterly powerless to annul the harmony between
the vision recorded three hundred years ago and the event of yesterday.
Whether such things are or not, it will be for the reader, when he has
gone through the book, to say. At present we will only busy ourselves
with what Nostradamus says of himself. He is a notability and worthy of
criticism, be the final verdict for or against him.
At the end of Century VI. occur four Latin lines headed—
LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS. [I. 51.]
Qui legent hosce versus maturè censunto,
Profanum vulgus et inscium ne attrectato,
Omnesque Astrologi, Blenni, Barbari procul sunto.
Qui aliter facit, is ritè sacer esto.
The sense of these lines is much clearer than the prosody, but that
matters little.
_Translation._
AN INCANTATION IN ARREST OF INEPT CRITICS.
Let those who read these verses meditate them seriously!
Let the profane and ignorant vulgar not handle them! Let
astrologers, fools, and savages stand off! Who acts contrary to
this, let him be cursed according to the rites of magic.
We now come to the magic formula.
_Century I.—Quatrain 1._ [I. 52.]
Estant assis de nuict secret estude,
Seul, reposé sur la sele[43] d’airain,
Flambe exigue sortant de solitude,
Fait prospèrer[44] qui[45] n’est à croire vain.
_Translation._
Gathered at night in study deep I sate,
Alone, upon the tripod stool of brass,
Exiguous flame came out of solitude,
Promise of magic that may be believed.
Being seated at night and wrapt in secret study, entirely
alone, I placed myself on the brazen tripod of prophecy. A
still small flame came forth of solitude, helping me to realize
successfully what it will not prove vain to have believed.
The reader will here refer to the “Préface à mon fils,” p. 48.
“L’entendement créé intellectuellement ne peut voir
occultement, sinon par la voix faicte au lymbe moyennant
la exigue flame, en laquelle partie les causes futures se
viendront à incliner.”
This passage conveys in prose what the last and the following quatrain
conveys in verse.
THE MAGICAL CALL BY WATER. [I. 53.]
_Century I.—Quatrain 1._
La verge[46] en main mise au milieu de BRANCHES,
De l’Onde il mouille et le limbe,[47] et le pied:
Un peur et voix fremissent par[48] les manches;
Splendeur divine, Le Divin prés s’assied.