The Prophecies
Page 16
4.31
The moon at midnight on the mountain high,
The new sage gazing, not right in the brain :
He is called by his disciples to eternal life :
Eyes raised, hands on chest, his body in flames.
4.32
In due time & place flesh shall give way to fish :
Everything in fact shall be held in common :
The old one shall hold strong, then made to vanish :
The soon forgotten.
4.33
Jove more conjoined with Venus than the Moon
Shall display himself in a blaze of white :
Venus hidden in the candor of Neptune
Shall be pestled by Mars’s leaden might.
4.34
The lord of a foreign land, led captive
On a golden chain, gift to King CHYREN,
Who shall lose the Italian war at Milan,
His entire host felled by sword & flame.
4.35
With tapers quenched, the nuns shall scapegoat
The greater part of this new sect : lightning
On lances : king guarded by monks : nighttimes
Etruscan, Corsican, blade to the throat.
4.36
In Gaul the new games shall be refounded
After victory over Milan & Campania :
Near the Hesperian mounts, lords captive & bound :
All Spain shall tremble with fear, plus Romagna.
4.37
Having passed through the defiles of mountains,
Gauls shall occupy the regions of Milan :
Driving their armies deep into its lands,
The red ships fended off by Monech, Gennes.
4.38
While the Duke is distracting King & Queen,
Byzantine chief is seized in Samothrace :
Before battle, each shall the other eat,
The ruthless hound tracking the bloody trace.
4.39
The men of Rhodes shall cry out for more aid,
Their isle disowned by its neglectful lords :
The Arab empire shall lessen its pace,
The common cause given new hope by Spain.
4.40
The barred-up fortresses of the besieged,
Blown by gunpowder into the abysm,
The traitors shall be sawed in half alive :
No priesthood ever endured such a schism.
4.41
One of the fairer sex, captured hostage,
Shall manage to elude her guards at night :
Camp commander, deceived by her language,
Succumbs to the wench, such a sorry sight.
4.42
Geneva, Langres, led captive to Montélimar
By those of Chartres & Grenoble & Dole,
Seyssel & Lausanne, shall defraud them all
With a ruse costing sixty marks in gold.
4.43
The clash of arms shall be heard in the skies :
That very year, the foes of the good Lord
Shall take up unjust arms against holy rites :
True believers struck down by bolts of war.
4.44
For notables of Mende, Rodez, Millau,
Cahors, Limoges, Castres, the week bodes ill :
A night raid by an apostate from Bordeaux,
Throughout Périgord as the bells do toll.
4.45
The conflict shall cause the king to quit the state,
His greatest chief missing in hour of need :
Dead & done for, few manage to escape :
Hacked to pieces : one witness to the deed.
4.46
Well defended as you think you now sit,
Be careful, Tours, of going to the dogs !
To London & Nantes Reims shall interdict
All further passage under cloak of fog !
4.47
When the ferocious black shall have tried
His bloody hand at fire, sword, bended bow,
People everywhere shall be terrified
To see their lords hanged by the neck & toe.
4.48
The Ausonian plain, so fertile & huge,
Shall produce gadflies & hosts of locusts :
The light of the sun shall be overcast :
All things devoured, mighty plagues ensue.
4.49
Before the people he lies there bleeding,
Who far from heaven never did subsist,
But his death throes shall long go unheeded :
One man alone minded to bear witness.
4.50
Libra shall see the Hesperias reign,
And hold kingship over heaven & earth :
No one shall see how Asia’s forces wane
Until seven in turn have ruled the Church.
4.51
The duke, keen to pursue his enemy,
Shall fall upon him, blocking his phalange :
Those fleeing on foot shall be so hounded
That the battle shall then be waged near Ganges.
4.52
The city besieged, men, women on walls,
Foe outside, chief ready to surrender :
The wind shall wheel against the attackers,
Driven back by gusts of lime, dust, cinders.
4.53
The fugitives & exiles welcomed back,
Father & son fortifying the high hills :
The cruel father & his men all strangled,
His son, faring far worse, drowned in the well.
4.54
The first of the French kings to bear this name,
No thunderbolt ever so fierce as he :
He struck fear into Italy, England, Spain,
And by foreign ladies was most intrigued.
4.55
When the crow shall caw for seven hours
Without cease upon its high brick tower :
A death foretold, statue running with blood,
Tyrant stabbed, people praying to the gods.
4.56
After this rabid tongue has won the war,
The mind is tempted by peace & repose :
His victory harangues a bloody bore,
Roasting his tongue along with flesh & bones.
4.57
The King endures the envy of the snide,
But shall ban all the writings of their scribes :
The bride he took was another man’s wife :
More than four of whom shall be gagged and tied.
4.58
Their throats glued shut by the fiery sun,
Human blood shall lave the Etruscan plain :
Pail of water enough to snare the son,
Lady captive embarked to Turkish main.
4.59
Burning with fever two besieged towns rage
For two cups of water to slake their thirst :
The fortress sapped, a dreamer in old age
Tells Geneva how Nira was his first.
4.60
Of seven children who remain hostage,
The third shall come to slaughter his own child :
His son shall pierce two others with his blade,
And then drive Florence & Genoa wild.
4.61
The old one mocked, knocked from his rightful place
By the usurper who comes from afar :
His son’s hands eaten before his very face,
Orl., Rouen betrayed by brother at Chartres.
4.62
An ambitious colonel contrives & schemes
To seize full commandment of all the troops :
Against the prince a stratagem he weaves,
And ends up discovered beneath the leaves.
4.63
French troops shall fall upon the mountain folk,
Hunt them all down & seize them while they sup :
Fresh recruits shall smash their presses of oak,
Sword blade shall fell them all & cut them up.
&nb
sp; 4.64
The weakling gussied up in townsman’s clothes
Shall tempt the King with a shady scheme :
Fifteen fighting men, outlaws for the most,
One last life, then master of his demesne.
4.65
Against the deserter of the great fort,
After he has abandoned its defense :
His enemy shall fight him with such sport,
The Emperor shall doom him to early death.
4.66
Seven spies disguised as seven friars
Shall be dispersed through the town in advance :
Poison sprinkled in the wells & fountains,
At Genoa’s fort, man devouring man.
4.67
Saturn & Mars equidistant to Sun,
The scorched air, the comet’s great trajection :
Entire regions gone up in secret flames,
The rain scarce, the wind hot, wars, incursions.
4.68
Not far away from Venus some year soon,
Asia’s & Africa’s two great hosts
Shall meet those from the Rhine & the Danube :
Shrieks, tears on Malta, Ligurian coast.
4.69
The great town taken by those it banished,
Its citizens killed, maimed & put to flight :
Aquileia then shall promise Parma
To show it a way back in, on the sly.
4.70
At the very rim of the Pyrenees,
One shall throw his troops against the Eagle :
Bloodshed, the whole army in smithereens,
As far as Pau he shall pursue the chief.
4.71
The daughters slaughtered in lieu of the wife
Who shall not survive this murder most vile :
The virgin girls shall be drowned in the well,
The wife shall be poisoned by aconite.
4.72
Arecomicians via Agen & Lectoure
At Saint-Félix their parliament shall convoke :
Those from Bazas, arriving out of nowhere,
Take Condom & Marsan at a single stroke.
4.73
The noble nephew shall put to the test
The pact that was just a cowardly game :
The Duke shall probe Ferrara & Asti,
One evening while the mime is onstage.
4.74
Those from Lake Leman & Brunnovices
Shall unite against those of Aquitaine :
Many Germans & a great more Swiss
Shall be defeated with those from Maine.
4.75
About to join the fray, he shall vanish :
The enemy general shall win the fight :
The rear guard shall rally to the defense,
The weak dying on the field of the white.
4.76
The Nictobriges by those from Périgord
Shall be hounded all the way to the Rhône :
An ally of the Gascons & Bigorre
Betrays the church before the sermon’s done.
4.77
SELIN monarch, Italy now at peace,
A single world ruled by a Christian king :
At Blois he would repose at his decease,
Having swept all the pirates from the seas.
4.78
The mighty army of this civil war,
Found at night in Parma on foreign soil :
Seventy-nine are slaughtered in the town,
Every single stranger put to the sword.
4.79
Flee Monhurt, Mas, Eguillon, O royal blood,
The Landes shall be aswarm with Bordelais :
Points & spurs throughout Navarre & Bigorre :
So starved they’ll eat the acorns of the cork.
4.80
Near great river, great conduit feeds the land,
Water divided into fifteen spouts :
The city seized, fire, blood, shrieks, war at hand :
Most of them in the arena, hiding out.
4.81
They shall promptly link boats into a bridge
To pass the troops of the great Belgian prince :
Not far from Brussels, they shall all fall in :
Seven get across, to be hacked to bits.
4.82
The horde approaches from Slavonia,
The ancient Vandal the city shall maim :
Laid to waste he shall see Romania,
Nor know how to extinguish the flames.
4.83
Brave captain, routed in the night melee,
Shall flee, incurring minor casualties :
His people dismayed, a mutinous scheme :
His very own son holds him under siege.
4.84
An Auxerre lord shall meet his wretched end,
Driven away by those who served him once :
Bound up in thick rope, then enwrapped in chains,
At summer junction of Mars, Venus, Sun.
4.85
The black coal follows on the white coal’s heels,
Captive carted off in backseat of a tumbrel :
The Moorish Camel, hobbled at its feet :
The younger son the falcon’s eyes shall seel.
4.86
When Saturn is in water-sign conjoined
With the Sun, the King is strong & potent :
Received at Reims & Aix, then anointed,
His wars won, he shall kill the innocent.
4.87
A royal son, learnèd in many tongues,
So different from his elder in the realm :
His father-in-law, urged on by older son,
Shall go after his main supporter’s head.
4.88
Great Antoine by name, & the lousy fact
Of phthiriasis eating him up with crabs :
One who shall just simply lust after lead,
The port passed, the elector drowns him dead.
4.89
Thirty of London shall secretly scheme
Against their King, plot transpiring at sea :
He & his acolytes on death shall feast :
Fair-haired King elected, native of Fries.
4.90
The armies shall not join up at the walls,
Milan & Pavia quaking with fright :
Hunger, thirst, doubt shall so pierce them withal,
Of bread or rations not a single bite.
4.91
The Gallic duke compelled to fight a duel,
Mellila’s ship shan’t reach Monaco’s shore :
Wrongly accused, condemned to life in jail,
Before he dies, his son shall strive to rule.
4.92
The valiant captain’s dissevered head
Before his adversary shall be thrown :
His body strung up on the yard, his fleet
Aghast, against the wind, away shall row.
4.93
Near her royal bed the lady apprehends
A snake : not a dog shall bark that night :
Then in France a prince of such royal line
Is born princes greet him as a godsend.
4.94
Two brothers shall be driven out of Spain,
The elder defeated by the Pyrenees :
Sea red, Rhône, Leman bloodied by Germany,
Agde contaminating Narbonne, Béziers.
4.95
The two shall briefly occupy the throne
Left to them, three years seven months of war :
The two vestals shall rise up in revolt,
The later-born, victor on Breton shore.
4.96
The elder sister of the British Isle,
Born some fifteen years before her brother :
Through her betrothed, should this be verified,
She shall succeed to the reign of Libra.
4.97
Mercury, Mars, Venus retrograding,
That year the Monarch’s line without failing :
One who shall reign into old age in peace.
4.98
The troops of Alba into Rome shall fare,
Langres shall not be half-attacked for naught :
Marquis & Duke no living soul shall spare :
Fire, blood, smallpox & crop-destroying drought.
4.99
The King’s daughter’s most valiant elder son
Shall drive the Celts so deep into retreat,
He’ll hurl his bolts down on everyone,
Near, far, then deep into the Hesperides.
4.100
Fire from on high falls upon the palace
When the light of Mars begins to grow pale :
Seven months of war, folk killed by malice,
But Rouen, Évreux the King shall not fail.
__________
CENTURIE IV
4.1
Cela du reste de sang non espandu,
Venise quiert secours estre donné:
Après avoir bien long temps attendu,
Cité livrée, au premier corn sonné.
4.2
Par mort la France prendra voyage à faire,
Classe par mer, marcher monts Pyrenées,
Espaigne en trouble, marcher gent militaire :
Des plus grand Dames, en France emmenées.
4.3
D’Arras & Bourges, de Brodes grans enseignes,
Vn plus grand nombre de Gascons batre à pied :
Ceux long du Rosne saigneront les Espaignes
Proche du mont où Sagonte s’assied.
4.4
L’impotent prince faché, plaincts & querelles,
De rapts & pilles, par coqz & par Lybiques :
Grand est par terre, par mer infinies voilles,
Seure Italie sera chassant Celtiques.
4.5
Croix, paix, soubz un accomply divin verbe,
L’Espaigne & Gaule seront unis ensemble :
Grand clade proche, & combat très acerbe,