The Prophecies

by Nostradamus

  but when ignorance is cast aside: From Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata (1531).

  CENTURY I

  1.1 Being seated: From Iamblichus’s description of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi in De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, reprinted by Petrus Crinitus in his De honesta disciplina (1543) and discussed by Cornelius Agrippa in De occulta philosophia (1510). “The prophetess at Delphi…being seated in the inner shrine on a bronze seat having three or four legs…would expose herself to the divine spirit, whence she was illuminated with a ray of divine fire.”

  1.2 Wand in hand: From Iamblichus’s account of the ancient oracle of Didymus at Branchidai in Asia Minor: “The female oracle at Branchus…either holds a wand in her hand or dips her feet or the hem of her robe in the water…or inhales some of the vapor arising from the water…and in this way is filled with a divine light…and predicts what is to come…the god becomes externally present…and the prophetess…is inspired.” The term “BRANCHES” (often the case with capitalized words in Nostradamus) suggests a pun on the shape of the sibyl’s tripod.

  1.4 the fisher’s barque: The Church of Rome.

  1.5 Carcas.: Carcassonne.

  1.6 The eye: Here, as elsewhere (e.g., 3.55), the hieroglyph for a king or prince. From Nostradamus’s translation of Horapollo. Brescia: Town in Lombardy, occupied by the French between 1512 and 1550? Turin: Capital of Savoy, occupied by the armies of François I in 1536. Vercelli: Town in the Piedmont captured by the French in 1553.

  1.7 fourteen of a sect: Prévost identifies these as the fourteen reformers of Meaux who were executed by François I in 1540, the leader of the plot (“the Redhead”) being the bishop of Oloron.

  1.8 City of the Sun: Perhaps Rhodes (formerly dedicated to the sun god Helios). More likely, Rome. Adria: Metonym for Venice.

  1.9 Punic: Includes the Phoenicians and Carthaginians—and, more broadly, the Muslims of North Africa and the Middle East. May allude to the Turkish fleet’s victorious attack on Malta in the summer of 1551. Cf. 2.30.

  1.10 iron cage: In his Mémoires, Philippe de Commynes notes that Louis XI invented these cages in the fifteenth century. Cf. 2.24; 3.10.

  1.11 Leon.: Possibly Leontini in Sicily (today’s Lentini).

  1.14 the enslaved: Usually read as referring to the Protestants of his day, here singing of their martyrdom in prison.

  1.16 Scythe: From Richard Roussat’s Livre de l’estat et mutation des temps (1550): “Then Saturn [the scythe] and Jupiter [the tin] shall be conjoined in Sagittarius…. Saturn, in the Fire Sign, shall be raised and exalted at its apogee…. Whereby pestilence, famine, and all kinds of corruptions, both of body and possessions, shall abound during this Cycle.”

  1.17 the rainbow: From Roussat: “The Venerable Bede (no less) states that Iris (that is to say the Rainbow, or Bow of Peace) shall in no wise be seen for the space of forty years….”

  1.18 Phocaean port: Marseille. As a result of François I’s temporary alliance with the Ottomans, their fleets were allowed to anchor in the ports of Toulon and Marseille during the winter of 1543. Cf. 2.5; 2.59.

  1.19 Trojan blood: Usually refers to French royal blood (cf. 2.61), but here appears to allude to the ancient Romans. A conflation of episodes from Julius Obsequens’s Book of Prodigies and Plutarch’s “Life of Marius” evoking the flight of this Roman general.

  1.20 Tents shall be pitched: In the winter of 1543/44, the fields surrounding Toulon had been transformed into a vast tent camp for Muslim troops. Cf. 1.18.

  1.21 the deep white clay: Phenomenon apparently observable at the Fontaine de Vaucluse. Crouzet sees an allegory extrapolated from Psalm 18 (“The Lord is my rock”).

  1.24 Cremo. & Mant.: Cremona and Mantua, in Lombardy, Italy.

  1.25 Shepherd as demigod: Jesus Christ? the moon completes its full cycle: I.e., in 1887. According to Roussat, the reign of the Moon had begun in 1533—a date believed by many evangelicals to mark the return of Christ, as presaged by the great comet of 1532. See also the note to 1.48.

  1.27 the hidden treasure: Cf. 9.7 and Matthew 13:44.

  1.28 Tower of Bouc: Tower erected in the twelfth century on the Mediterranean coast at Port-de-Bouc, attacked by Barbary pirates in 1536 and overlooking the Turkish fleet’s anchorage in the winter of 1543 (cf. 1.18).

  1.31 king of Spain: Charles V, king of Castile. The eagle was the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire; the cock, that of the Kingdom of France.

  1.32 The empire shall soon find itself retired: Allusion to the Avignon papacy, 1309–78?

  1.35 The young lion shall overcome the old: Legend has it that this celebrated quatrain, published in 1555, successfully prophesied the death of King Henri II, who died on July 10, 1559, after a joust in which the lance of the Count of Montgomery, Captain of the Scottish Guard, penetrated his headgear and pierced his right eye and temple. Both combatants used lions as their emblems. But Henri II (the supposed “old lion”), then age forty, was probably only six months older than his adversary. It was not until 1614 that this interpretation appeared in print (in César de Nostredame’s Histoire et chronique de Provence).

  1.39 note in packet left unread: May refract Suetonius’s account of the assassination of Julius Caesar.

  1.40 A change in coins: After returning to France from four years of captivity in Egypt, Louis IX in 1263 issued an edict reforming the currency.

  1.42 the Gnostic rite: Brind’Amour’s emendation of the first printing, “rite gotique” (i.e., gothic rite). According to Psellus, as quoted in Petrus Crinitus’s De honesta disciplina, the Gnostics of yore used to “gather on the evening of the Passion of Our Savior and…having put out the lights, copulate promiscuously with their sisters or with their daughters…reckoning that this would facilitate the entry of the demons.”

  1.44 Honey…wax: Honey is traditonally associated with the mellifluous Word of God, wax with earthly existence.

  1.45 The bane of sects: Alludes to the contemporary oppression of the Protestants. The beast is brought onstage: Étienne Jodelle’s Cléopâtre captive, the first modern attempt to imitate ancient tragedy, was performed before the court of Henri II in 1553. In honor of the play’s success, Jodelle’s friends, the Pléiade poets Ronsard and Baïf, organized a ceremony in which a goat garlanded with flowers was presented to the author in a revival of the pagan rites of Dionysus.

  1.46 Auch…Lectoure: Towns in the Gers, southwestern France. Cf. 8.2.

  1.47 Days shall be as long as weeks: Parody of the Prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl recorded in the Mirabilis liber in which, as a result of the arrival of the Antichrist, “years shall be shortened like months, months like weeks, weeks like days, and days like hours.” The long-windedness of the Calvinist sermons from Geneva on Lake Leman will produce exactly the opposite effect.

  1.48 Now that the Moon for twenty years has reigned: According to Roussat, the current reign of Moon had begun in 1533, with the lunar cycle coming to completion in 1887; the following cycle, that of the Sun, would in turn be completed in 2242. In the preface dedicated to his son César, Nostradamus arrives at the date 3797 for the final fulfillment of his prophecies by presumably adding 1555 (the date of publication of the first edition) to 2242 (the end of the solar cycle). Cf. 1.25.

  1.50 water’s triplicity: According to Roussat, the period of “aquatic triplicity” (which assured the reign of the three zodiacal signs of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) began in 1402 and foreboded the coming of the Antichrist, who would celebrate Thursday (the day of Jupiter) as his sabbath. Cf. 10.71.

  1.51 Saturn & Jove at the head of Aries: Dated as 1702 by Roussat.

  1.52 In Scorpio the two wicked ones: The conjunction of Saturn and Mars in Scorpio could refer, according to the prophetic calendar, to either August 1572 or October–November 1600. The grand seigneur: In the sixteenth century, the French term grand seigneur frequently designated the Ottoman sultan. Sultan Selim died in 1520, the same year Martin Luther was excommunicated by the pope. Charles V (the “new king”) was crowned Holy Roman Emperor t
he previous year. the Septentrion: The North.

  1.53 Each time a new gold, silver mine is found: By the Spanish conquistadors?

  1.54 Ten revolutions: Predicted by Roussat to occur toward 1789–91. the mobile sign: Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn.

  1.57 Great Discord: The allegorical figure of Discord is taken from Petrus Crinitus’s De honesta disciplina, who borrows it from Petronius’s Satiricon.

  1.58 born with two heads: César de Nostredame suggested this might allude to the birth of a two-headed child at Sénas (near Salon) on January 31, 1554. Aquileia…Turin…Ferrara: Cities of northern Italy. Cf. 2.15 and 5.99.

  1.62 Before the moon completes its cycle: Cf. 1.48.

  1.64 the half-human pig: From Julius Obsequens’s Book of Prodigies—as are the other marvels in this quatrain.

  1.65 The royal child: May refer to the death of the dauphin François in 1536 after having fallen ill during a game of tennis.

  1.66 Viviers…Pradelles: Towns in the Ardèche, Haute-Loire, and Puy-de-Dôme regions.

  1.69 stades: Unit of length equivalent to 600 Greek or Roman feet (or 185 meters).

  1.71 The sea fort: Perhaps the Tower of Bouc (cf. 1.28) or the Tower of Saint-Jean guarding the port of Marseille, occupied by the Spaniards in 1425 and again in 1536. Cf. 2.14.

  1.73 Sicily’s Leon.: Cf. 1.11.

  1.74 Epire: Epirus, region on the Ionian Sea, shared by today’s Greece and Albania. Antioch: Celebrated Syrian city on the river Orontes. Bronzebeard: From the Latin ahenobarbus, “red-bearded.” May refer to the tyrant Nero (who belonged to the gens of the Aenobarbi) or to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who laid siege to Antioch during the First Crusade. In Nostradamus’s day the name would have been associated with Hayreddin Barbarossa (ca. 1478–1546), the Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for much of the early sixteenth century.

  1.75 Savona: Port to the west of Genoa. Marches of Ancona: Region on the Adriatric, bordering Tuscany and Umbria.

  1.77 black sail: May evoke the black sail with which the Greek hero Theseus inadvertently caused his father’s death.

  1.79 Car., Bord., Bay.: Carcassonne, Bordeaux, Bayonne, all in the Protestant stronghold of southwestern France, as are the five towns listed in the first line. For Toulouse and bull sacrifice, cf. 1.44; 9.46.

  1.80 the sixth celestial splendor: The planet Jupiter.

  1.81 Kappa, Theta, Lambda: Greek letters gematrically equivalent to 9, 20, 30—which, added together, might point to the 59 Templars who were burned at the stake in Paris in 1310 for heresy. Nine further heretics (see line 1) were summarily executed in Senlis, without the benefit of full trial.

  1.82 Vienna: The Ottomans besieged Vienna in 1529.

  1.84 Its brother…dull as iron rust: Cf. the ferruginous sun in mourning for the death of Julius Caesar in Virgil’s Georgics I, 461–68. Also: Acts 2:19–22.

  1.86 the mighty queen: From Livy’s History of Rome (II, 13) and Plutarch’s “Life of Publicola,” which recount how the noble young hostage Cloelia fled the camp of her captor, the Etruscan king Porsena, by traversing the Tiber back to Rome on horseback, thereby violating the terms of agreement between Tarquinius and Porsena.

  1.87 Ennosigaeus: Neptune, the “earth-shaker.” Arethusa: Pursued by the river god Alpheus, the nymph Arethusa was changed into a stream to escape him. Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 572–641.

  1.88 epilepsy: Julius Caesar was subject to seizures for the last two years of his life. shaven head: Tonsured monk? Cf. 4.66; 5.60; 6.29; 7.13; 7.36.

  1.89 Lerida: Town in Aragon, Spain.

  1.90 At the toll of the bell: The tocsin encouraging the peasants of southwestern France to rise up in revolt against Henri II’s salt tax in the summer of 1548? monster is born near Orgon: Cf. 1.58.

  1.93 The Lion & the Cock: Venice (?) and France. Celts: Portuguese.

  1.94 port Selin: Cf. 2.1; 4.23.

  1.95 A twin: Théodore de Bèze (1519–1605), whose twin brother died at age twenty-three, would later become John Calvin’s Protestant successor at Geneva. Cf. 7.20.

  1.96 his tongue’s golden chains: This “Gallic Hercules” (cf. 10.79) is described in Erasmus’s 1502 translation of Lucian’s The Death of Peregrinus. An epithet of Henri II—but also known by the name of Ogmion in 2.73; 5.80; 6.42; 8.4; 8.44; 9.89—the demigod is described as “leading on the nations by their ears which are attached by chains to his tongue.” Erasmus also used the mythical figure of Ogmion (or “Ognyon”) to illustrate the superiority of eloquence over brute force.

  1.97 Smooth tongue: Possibly Michel de l’Hôpital (1507–1573), adviser to Henri II.

  1.100 Holding in its beak a fresh branch of green: According to Suetonius (I, 81), one of the omens presaging the death of Julius Caesar was a bird flying with a laurel branch in its beak.

  CENTURY II

  2.1 assaults by Britain: British attacks on La Rochelle were feared during the salt-tax revolt of the summer of 1548 in southwestern France. Cf. 1.90; 2.61.

  2.2 Blue turban: In his 1566 almanac Nostradamus predicts that within seventy-two years, the “white head” (i.e., the king of the Turks) will enter into great conflict with the “blue head” (the king of the Persians).

  2.3 The fish half-cooked: From Julius Obsequens’s Book of Prodigies. Negrepont: “Black sea,” the medieval name for the island of Euboea and its capital, Chalcis. Cf. 2.21; 5.98.

  2.5 He goes free: Nostradamus’s old acquaintance the Baron de la Garde (ca. 1498–1578), French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1541–47), was released from prison in 1552 and rejoined the French fleet that cooperated with the Ottomans in the battles of Corsica and Sardinia. Cf. 2.59; 2.78.

  2.7 born with two teeth in its throat: Cf. 3.42.

  2.14 the Saint-Jean tower: Guarding the port of Marseille, where Caterina de’ Medici and her uncle Pope Clement VII were received in 1533 as they made their way to her wedding to the future Henri II of France. Cf. 1.71; 9.27.

  2.15 Castor & Pollux: St. Elmo’s fire.

  2.20 Brothers & sisters: Huguenots. In January 1535, François I had organized a procession of Protestant heretics on their way to the stake.

  2.21 Negrepont: Cf. 2.3.

  2.22 Asop…Eurotas: Asopia, river in Boeotia; Eurotas, river in Laconia (Sparta). the navel of the earth: The omphalos of Delphi, site of the oracle of Apollo.

  2.23 Near palace: Incident from the reign of Tarquin the Elder recorded in Julius Obsequens’s Book of Prodigies.

  2.24 Ister: Latin name for the Danube. Due to its old French spelling in the original printing (Hifter), the name has been famously read as prophetic of Hitler. iron cage: Cf. 1.10; 3.10.

  2.26 Ticino overthrows Po: The Ticino River flows into the Po east of Pavia, site of the disastrous French defeat in 1525. Cf. 4.5; 4.75; 8.7; 10.72.

  2.27 The Divine Word: The consecrated host. Cf. 3.2; 7.36; 8.99.

  2.28 Joveday: Thursday. Cf. 1.50; 10.71.

  2.30 Hannibal: Livy’s History of Rome chronicles the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s invasion of Italy in 218–203 B.C.E. Cf. 1.9.

  2.31 Cassiline: A town in Campania (today’s Capua).

  2.32 monster born near & in Ravenna: Discovered by invading French troops in 1512 and attested by Ambroise Paré in his Des monstres et prodiges (1573). Cf. 5.20.

  2.35 Fire shall break out: In November 1500, a fire broke out at the Hôtel de la Tête d’Argent in Lyon (at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône), killing many of the merchants who were staying there for the annual trade fair.

  2.38 When the monarchs are reconciled: The brief diplomatic thaw between François I and Charles V in 1538–39?

  2.40 Greek fire: Incendiary weapons used in naval battles by the Byzantine Empire.

  2.41 The mighty star shall blaze seven days straight: Drawn from Julius Obsequens’s description of the omens following the assassination of Julius Caesar. Could also refer to the comet of 1527.

  2.43 bearded star: Comet. The three great princes: May refer to the dissensions
within the triumvirate of Octavius, Marc Antony, and Lepidus in the wake of Julius Caesar’s death.

  2.45 the Androgyne’s birth: A frequent omen in Obsequens’s Book of Prodigies.

  2.46 The mighty Mover renews the ages: A paraphrase of Virgil’s celebrated Fourth Eclogue. Cf. 3.92.

  2.48 Saturn in Sag.: The astronomical conjunction coincides with 1545–46, a period that saw the massacre of the Waldensians in the Lubéron mountains (led by the Baron de la Garde) and the hanging of one of their leaders in Avignon. Psalmons: Possible pun on psalms and salmons.

  2.49 Malta now on their mind: The Knights of St. John were granted refuge in Malta by Charles V in 1530.

  2.50 Ghent, Brussels & Hainaut: Ghent, chief city of Flanders, Brussels of Brabant; with Hainaut, the three richest provinces of the Netherlands. Cf. 4.19. Langres: Key city on the sixteenth-century frontier between the Netherlands and France.

  2.51 Six times twenty-three consumed by lightning: Cf. 1.81. During the Affair of the Templars (1307–14), 138 French heretics were burned at the stake (unlike those arrested in England). Cf. the allusions to the Templars in 8.87.

  2.53 The mighty plague: Marseille and Provence were struck by the plague following the 1545 massacre of the Waldensians of the Lubéron. The great dame: The dame de Cental, patroness of the Waldensians?

  2.55 Adria: Cf. 1.8.

  2.57 the great wall shall fall: Just before Rome was sacked by the Imperial forces in 1527, the wall joining the Vatican to the Castel Sant’Angelo collapsed, killing Charles III, Duke of Bourbon in the process.

  2.59 This great Neptune: I.e., the Baron de la Garde, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire under François I—whose 1543 agreement to allow the Turkish fleet to anchor in the ports of Toulon and Marseille seems to be alluded to in line 3. Cf. 1.18; 2.5; 2.78. Narbonne of Mars: The Roman coastal colony of Narbonne was placed under the protection of Mars.

  2.60 The Punic pact now broken: The breaking of the Ottomans’ agreement with France in 1554? Ganges, Indus: Paraphrase of the Sibylline oracle: “Ganges, Indus, Tagus erit mutabile visu” (“The Ganges, Indus, Tagus shall change their face”).