Century 6

VI.1

[after Plutarch’s account in his Parallel Lives of the flight of the old Roman general Gaius Marius from the pursuing forces of Sulla]

Around the Pyrenees mountains a great throng
of foreigners shall aid the new King:
by the Garonne near the great temple of Le Mas [d’Agenais],
a Roman chief shall trap him in the water.

VI.2

[after Richard Roussat’s Livre de l’estat et mutations des temps of 1549/50]

In the year five hundred and eighty, more or less,
we should expect a very strange age:
in the year seven hundred, heaven be my witness,
many kingdoms (from one to five) shall change.

VI.3

[after the religious problems that beset the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V from his coronation in 1520]

The river [the Rhine] that tests the new Celtic heir
shall be [placed] in great discord by the Empire:
the young prince through the ecclesiastical folk
shall remove the regal sceptre of concord.

VI.4

[after the invasion of France across the Rhine by the Emperor Charles V in July 1536]

The Celtic river [the Rhine] shall exchange its shore:
no longer shall it include the city of Agrippina [Cologne].
All [shall be] transformed except the old language.
Saturn, Leo, Mars, shall plunder Cancer.

VI.5

[after the new situation of Amiens (the Gallic Samarobriva) after the Imperial invasion mentioned in the previous verse, standing in no-man’s-land between the Holy Roman Empire to the east and France to the west, instead of some 91 French leagues as the crow flies from the former border with the Empire on the Rhine]

Such great famine [there shall be] through a pestiferous wave
through long rains along the arctic pole [the northern hemisphere]:
Samarobriva, a hundred leagues from the [Eastern] hemisphere,
shall live without law [any particular government], exempt from politics.

VI.6

[possibly after reports of the comet of 1530]

There shall appear towards the north,
not far from Cancer, the bearded star [comet]:
[then over] Susa, Siena, Boeotia, Eretria.
The lord of Rome shall die the night it disappears.

VI.7

[after Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome concerning the forced withdrawal of the Emperor Claudius’s brother Germanicus Caesar from the German forests]

Norway and Dacia and the British Isle
shall be harried by the united brothers:
the Roman leader [who has] sprung from Gallic blood
and his forces [shall be] driven back in the forests.

VI.8

[after the relative undervaluing of scholars and scholarship under the new Henry II]

Those whose knowledge once counted in the kingdom
shall become impoverished on the change of King:
some, exiled without support, shall have no gold [money].
The lettered and letters shall not be greatly prized.

VI.9

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3 and the grisly fate of the money-laundering Chancellor Antoine Duprat, as per IV.88 above]

In the sacred temples [churches] scandals shall be perpetrated:
they shall be counted as honours and commendations.
Of one, of whom they [shall] engrave medals of silver and gold,
the end shall be in truly strange torments.

VI.10

[after the Journal of Louise de Savoie]

For a short time the temples [churches shall be] with colours
of both white and black intermingled:
reds and yellows shall steal away their people from them.
Blood on the land: plague, famine, fire: sent mad by water.

VI.11

[evidently after the contemporary French royal family]

Of seven offspring shall be reduced to three
the eldest ones: [they] shall be overtaken by death.
The two [The leaders] shall be seduced by fratricide:
the plotters while sleeping shall be [found] dead.

VI.12

[after unidentified political and military events involving King Henry II of France]

He shall raise forces to rise against the Empire:
against the Vatican the blood royal shall hold fast.
Flemings, English, Spain shall with him strive:
against Italy [and] France [they] shall contend.

VI.13

[after the Great Western Church Schism involving the mentally ill Pope Urban VI, elected in 1378, but then reneged on by the formerly supportive cardinals in favour of Pope Clement VII]

A dubious one shall come not far from power:
the greater part shall be willing to uphold him.
A Capitol shall not want him to reign at all:
his great burden he shall be unable to bear.

VI.14

[after the capture and imprisonment of King Richard I of England in Vienna in 1192]

Far from his land a King shall lose the battle:
having quickly escaped, pursued, then captured.
Not realising [that a prince is] beneath the golden mail,
under false clothing, [and] the enemy [shall be] surprised.

VI.15

[possibly after the exile of Martin Luther in Wartburg castle after the Diet of Worms of 1521]

Under the tombstone shall be found the prince
who shall have gained the prize over Nuremberg:
the Spanish king, just within Capricorn,
[Shall be] Deceived and betrayed by the Lord of Wittenberg.

VI.16

[after the expulsion of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa from northern Italy by the Norman rulers of Sicily in 1176, leaving only his Benedictine entourage behind]

That which shall be snatched from the young Hawk
by the Normans from France and Picardy
the Black Ones of the Church [Benedictines] of the Black Forest area
shall make an inn and hearth of Lombardy.

VI.17

[after the history of Nostradamus’s own Jewish forebears]

After the files [books], the ass-drivers [indicted] [shall be] burned [as well]:
they shall be forced to change into a range of clothing.
The Saturnians [Jews] burned by the millers [monks],
apart from most of those who shall not have converted.

VI.18

[after the story of a contemporary Jewish doctor at the Court in Paris, if not of Nostradamus himself]

By the physicians the great King given up,
by fate, not the Jew’s art, he stays alive:
he and his ilk raised high in the kingdom,
pardon granted to the race that denies Christ.

VI.19

[after events involving an unidentified omen]

The real flame shall consume the lady
who shall want to put the innocents in the fire:
before the assault the army is inflamed
when in Seville a monstrous bull shall be seen.

VI.20

[after the Holy League of 1537, drawn up between Pope Paul III, the Emperor Charles V and the republic of Venice to oppose the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent]

The Holy League shall be of short duration:
of those who have changed most shall change their minds.
In the vessels men shall be a long time:
then shall Rome have a new Leopard [Pope].

VI.21

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3 and its predictions of a future ‘Angelic Pastor’]

When those of the arctic pole [the northern hemisphere] are allied together,
in the East [there shall be] great terror and fear:
[with] the newly elected [Pope] supporting the mighty Church,
Rhodes, Byzantium [shall be] stained with Barbarian blood.

VI.22

[after an unidentified incident in England, taken as an omen for the rise of Protestantism]

Within the land [diocese?] of the great holy church
a nephew/grandson [shall be] murdered at London during a sham truce.
The Bark [of the Fisherman, i.e. the Church] shall then become schismatic:
fake liberty shall be proclaimed everywhere.

VI.23

[after the alleged money-laundering activities of the rascally Chancellor, Papal Legate, quintuple bishop and Cardinal Archbishop of Sens, Antoine Duprat, and the contemporary decay of the Church]

By one power-obsessed the coinage [shall be] depreciated,
and people shall be stirred up against their King:
[by] high office [and religious] novelties holy laws debased.
Never was Rapis [Paris] in so dire a plight.

VI.24

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s predictions of the advent of a future Grand Monarque, timed astrologically to follow a summer war as per the Roman civil war of 50 BC]

Mars and the Sceptre [Jupiter] shall find themselves in conjunction:
under Cancer [in the summer] calamitous war.
Shortly afterwards a new King shall be anointed
who for a long time shall pacify the land.

VI.25

[source unidentified]

Through a hostile war shall the monarchy
of the great Fisherman be in ruinous trouble:
a new, black red [dark Cardinal] shall take control.
The traitors shall act on a day of drizzle.

VI.26

[apparently after Popes Julius III and Gregory VIII]

For four years the see shall hold together fairly well,
[but then] one libidinous in lifestyle shall succeed to it:
Ravenna, Pisa and Verona shall support
the Pope’s desire to take up the Cross [to mount a Crusade].

VI.27

[after Plutarch’s account, in his Parallel Lives, of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Punjab (which literally means ‘five rivers’)]

[From] within the isles where five rivers join in one [the Punjab],
for the Crescent of [against?] the great lunar Chyren [Henri]
in the drizzles/mists of the air the fury of one:
six escaped, hidden [in] bundles of flax.

VI.28

[possibly after the Italian campaign of Duke François de Guise in May 1557]

The great Celt shall enter Rome,
leading a throng of exiles and banished:
the mighty Pastor shall put to death [shelter?] every man
who joined up in the Alps for the Cock.

VI.29

[after an unidentified case of a mother saving her sons from the Inquisition]

The holy widow, hearing the news
of her offspring placed in perplexity and trouble,
who shall be induced to calm the disputes,
through her legal action shall triumph over the monks.

VI.30

[source unidentified]

Through the appearance of fake holiness,
the see shall be betrayed to the enemies:
in the night when they thought to sleep safely,
near Brabant those of Liège shall be on the march.

VI.31

[source unidentified]

The King shall find what he desired so much
when the Prelate shall be mistakenly recaptured:
his reply to the Duke shall make him displeased
who in Milan shall put many to death.

VI.32

[source unidentified, but possibly connected with the troubles of Charles V in the Low Countries]

For treason people [having been] beaten to death with sticks,
captured and overtaken he shall be by his own [the resulting] disorder:
frivolous counsel [shall be] offered to the captive lord
when Begich [Belgium?] shall quarrel furiously with itself.

VI.33

[after Tacitus’s account, in his Annals of Imperial Rome (VI.41-4), of the deposing of the Roman puppet Tiridates III by the Scythian Artabanus III in Mesopotamia, the ‘land between two rivers’, in AD 37, after he had occupied Halus and Artemita]

His remaining force bloody as a result of Alus [Halus],
he shall be unable to guarantee his safety by sea:
between two rivers a military force shall encircle him.
The black and angry one shall make him sorry.

VI.34

[after an unidentified use of a military catapult]

Of flying fire the machine
shall trouble the great besieged leader:
within, there shall be such sedition
that the defeated shall be in despair.

VI.35

[after unidentified drought and fires of spring and early summer]

Near Orion and close to the white wool [Aries],
the Sun [in] Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Virgo,
Mars, Jupiter, [there] shall burn great plains,
forests and cities. Letters sealed with a candle [candlewax].

VI.36

[after Plutarch’s account in his Parallel Lives of the flight of the aged consul Marius from the pursuing troops of Sulla in around 80 BC]

Neither good nor evil through the land-battle
shall reach the confines of Perugia:
Pisa shall rebel, Florence shall see much woe.
The King wounded by night on a mule, covered with black mud.

VI.37

[source unidentified]

The ancient work shall be fulfilled:
from the roof shall evil ruin drop upon the lord.
An innocent they shall accuse of the mortal act,
the guilty one hidden in a copse under [the cover of] drizzle/mist.

VI.38

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

To the beaten ones of peace [on behalf of] the enemies
after conquering Italy,
the bloodthirsty black one [Moor] and red shall be determined
fire, blood to shed: water stained with blood.

VI.39

[source unidentified]

The Royal prince, on the capture of his father,
shall be exposed to deliver [ransom] him:
near the azure Lake of Perugia captured,
the troop [of abductors] taken hostage through having become much too drunk.

VI.40

[source unidentified]

For slaking his great thirst, the Lord of Mainz
shall be deprived of his great dignity:
those of Cologne shall complain so loudly about it
that the whole crew shall be thrown into the Rhine.

VI.41

[after the 11th-century Gesta Cnutonis Regis, part of the Annales Bertiani, or Annals of St Bertin, describing the pilgrimage of the lavishly generous King Canute (Knut II of Denmark) to Rome in 1027 for the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II]

The second head of the kingdom of Denmark
for those of Frisia and of the British Isle
shall spend more than a hundred thousand marks
[in his] vain [efforts] to fulfil a journey to Italy.

VI.42

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s predictions of the advent of a future Grand Monarque]

To Ogmios [the Gallic Hercules (Henri II)] shall be left the realm
of the great Lunar One [Muslim], who shall also be defeated.
Throughout Italy he shall extend his banner:
he shall be governed by prudent guile.

VI.43

[after the Hundred Years’ War between France and England between 1337 and 1453]

For a long time it shall be without inhabitants
around where the Seine and the Marne water,
assailed by the Thames and its warriors [the English].
The guards [shall] deceive themselves in thinking to repulse them.

VI.44

[after an unidentified rash of contemporary omens]

By night the rainbow shall appear near Nantes:
naval technologies shall stir up rain.
In the Gulf of Arabia a great fleet shall sink:
in Saxony a monster shall be born of a bear and a sow.

VI.45

[source unidentified]

The most learned governor of the kingdom,
not wishing to consent to the royal edict,
the fleet at Melilla through contrary wind
shall reduce him to his most disloyal.

VI.46

[source unidentified, but with some of the imagery presumably based on the Latin Epigrams of Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523)]

A just one shall be sent into exile
through [at a time of] pestilence to the confines of the Market of the Sigils [at Rome].
His reply to the Red one shall cause him to be banished,
the King retreating before the Frog [Sea-Fish] and the Eagle.

VI.47

[after an unidentified incident in the contemporary wars in the Netherlands]

Between two mountains the two lords assembled
shall abandon their secret quarrel:
Brussels and Dôle, overcome by Langres,
shall inflict their plague at Malines.

VI.48

[after an unidentified incident in the contemporary Italian wars]

The too false and seductive sanctity
[shall be] accompanied by a ready tongue:
the old city, and Parma too hasty,
shall lay waste Florence and Siena.

VI.49

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

On behalf of Mars [war], the great Pontiff
shall subjugate the confines of the Danube:
he shall put Christians to the sword by hook or crook.
Captives, gold rings, more than a hundred thousand rubies.

VI.50

[after the recovery from the Tiber of the body of the Duke of Gandia, murdered on the orders of Cesare Borgia in 1497, plus the activities of the latter’s sister Lucretia and his own translation from Cardinal to soldier]

Within the pit shall be found the bones:
incest shall be committed by the stepmother.
Her/his state changed [for the worst], they shall demand fame and praise,
and he shall have Mars rising as his star.

VI.51

[after the coronation of Pope Clement V at Lyon on 14 November 1305, attended by various kings and nobles, during which a collapsing wall killed many spectators]

The people assembled to see a new spectacle,
princes and kings [being] among many present,
pillars, walls shall fall, but as by a miracle
the King [shall be] saved and thirty of the bystanders.

VI.52

[possibly after one of Queen Catherine de Médicis’s miscarriages]

In place of the lord who shall be condemned,
out from prison [shall come] his friend in his place:
the Trojan [Royal] hope after six months on end [shall be] stillborn.
Sun in Aquarius: rivers shall be gripped by ice.

VI.53

[source unidentified]

The great Celtic prelate suspected by the King
in the course of the night shall quit the kingdom
through a duke useful to his great British King.
Byzantium by Cyprus and Tunis [shall be] unsuspected.

VI.54

[apparently after the assassination of King Mohammed al-Mahdi by the Pasha of Algiers in 1557, following raids by the Turks on Fez and Bougie]

At daybreak at the second cockcrow
[by] those of Tunis, of Fez and of Bougie
through the Arabs the King of Morocco [shall be] captured:
the year sixteen hundred and seven of the Liturgy.

VI.55

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

In the noonday heat the duke, while diving for sponges,
shall see an Arab sail [fleet], suddenly noticed:
Tripolis, Chios [overrun by] those from Trebizond,
the duke captured by the Black Sea, the city deserted.

VI.56

[after the Rozier historial de France of 1522 or d’Auton’s Chroniques de Louis XII, describing the 1503 confrontation between Louis XII of France and the Spaniards in which the Spanish King blinded his own troops with money]

The dread army of the Narbonnese enemy
shall frighten the Hesperians [Spaniards] so much
[that] Perpignan [shall be] evacuated by the ‘Blind Mole’.
Then Barcelona by sea shall take up the quarrel.

VI.57

[after the enthronement in 1503 of Pope Julius II, known as Uomo terribile]

He who was high up in the kingdom,
having a Red Hat [being a cardinal], close to the hierarchy,
harsh and cruel, [and he] shall make himself so feared.
He shall succeed to the sacred monarchy.

VI.58

[after the solar eclipse of the summer of 1551, marking the beginning of a new conflict between King Henri II and the Emperor Charles V, the French-inspired rebellion of Siena of 1552 and the liberation of Corsica from the Genoans]

Between the two estranged monarchs,
when the sun’s light is obscured by the moon,
great enmity between the two affronted ones,
so that liberty is restored to the Isles and Siena.

VI.59

[after the discovery en flagrant délit of Henri II with his lover Lady Fleming by his mistress Diane de Poitiers and the subsequent Edict of Châteaubriant, which prescribed burning at the stake as the punishment for heresy]

The Lady in fury through [her] rage at the adultery
shall beseech her Prince to deny it:
but shortly afterwards the slanging match shall become known,
such that seventeen shall be put to martyrdom.

VI.60

[after the recriminations between Charles V and Philip of Hesse in 1547 that resulted from a bad translation of a communiqué, plus an apparent incident during the Aquitaine salt-tax revolt of 1548]

The Prince beyond his Celtic territory
shall be betrayed, deceived by an interpreter:
Rouen, La Rochelle through those of Brittany
at the port of Blaye [shall be] deceived by monk and priest.

VI.61

[after the abandonment by the Emperor Charles V of the siege of Metz in 1552, leaving his tent and its incompletely-displayed tapestry behind]

The great tapestry, folded, shall show
only by halves most of the story:
chased out of the kingdom, he shall seem fierce from afar
so that everyone shall believe in his bellicose achievements.

VI.62

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

Both being too late, the Flowers [Florence and Firenzuela?] shall be lost:
against the law [of the Church?] the Snake shall be unwilling to act.
The forces of the Leaguers [shall be] confounded by the French.
[In] Savona, Albenga through Monaco [there shall be] great martyrdom.

VI.63

[apparently a particularly fortunate prophecy for the contemporary Queen Catherine de Médicis, following the death of her husband Henri II in 1559]

The lady left alone in power,
the first one in the bed of honour having been extinguished,
for seven years shall be racked with grief,
then long life in power with great good fortune.

VI.64

[source unidentified]

They shall not observe any truce agreed upon:
all shall act with deceit who subscribe to
pacts and truces declared by land and sea.
By Barcelona a fleet [shall be] seized by guile.

VI.65

[after an unidentified religious quarrel between Franciscans, possibly settled by Dominican Inquisitors]

Grey and brown, at half-declared war,
by night shall be assailed and pillaged:
the captured brown shall be cast into prison,
his church thrown open to two plaster saints.

VI.66

[after the discovery of the half-buried obelisk of Augustus Caesar in 1502, when Pietro Bernadino was burned alive for founding a new sect of primitive Christians called the unti]

Upon the foundation of the new sect
the bones of the Roman lord shall be found:
a sepulchre covered by marble shall appear,
[when] earth shall quake in April, poorly buried.

VI.67

[probably after the Mirabilis Liber’s prophecies of the Antichrist]

To great power shall quite another one attain,
further from goodness than from happiness:
ruled by one [who has] sprung not far from the brothel,
he shall corrupt kingdoms to mighty misery.

VI.68

[source unidentified]

When soldiers with seditious fury
shall cause steel [blades] to flash by night against their chief,
the enemy from Alba acts with its furious army
then to vex Rome and seduce the princely ones.

VI.69

[possibly after the desertion of Marshal Brissac by his troops in 1556 in favour of the more generous Duke of Guise]

The piteousness shall be great before long:
those who gave shall be obliged to take.
Naked, starving, they shall band together for cold and thirst,
and cross the mountains committing great scandals.

VI.70

[after the Emperor Charles V’s triumphant raid on the pirate Barbarossa’s headquarters at Tunis in June 1535 – even quoting part of his Latin motto PLUS ULTRA]

At the head of the world shall the great Chyren [Henri] be,
Plus ultra [further beyond] thereafter loved, feared, dreaded:
his fame and praise shall exceed the heavens [themselves],
and with the sole title of Victor he shall be well pleased.

VI.71

[after the abdication of the ailing Emperor Charles V in 1555]

When they shall solemnly celebrate the death of the great King
even before he has given up the ghost at all,
[by] him who shall grieve over him the least
for the Christian Lions and Eagles the crown [shall be] sold.

VI.72

[source unidentified]

Through feigned frenzy of divine inspiration
the woman shall be severely violated by the lord:
by judges wishing to condemn such a doctrine
the victim shall be sacrificed to the ignorant people.

VI.73

[source unidentified]

In a great city a monk and artisan,
[shall be] lodged near the gate and in the walls
against Modena in secret, saying ‘Beware!’,
[but shall be] betrayed for acting under the guise of a betrothal.

VI.74

[source unidentified]

The banished woman shall return to power,
her enemies found to be conspirators:
more than ever she shall triumph over her time,
three-and-seventy [condemned] to only too certain death.

VI.75

[after the promotion of Gaspard de Coligny to the post of Admiral of France in 1552, before defecting to the Protestant cause]

‘Lord Pillar’ [‘column’ = Coligny ] shall be commissioned by the King
to leave the army for a higher position:
seven years later he shall be in rebellion.
A Barbarian army shall encircle Venice.

VI.76

[probably after the removal of an unidentified Venetian tyrant of Padua]

The ancient city founded by Antenor [Padua]
being no longer able to tolerate the tyrant,
by a sham one-armed one he shall have his throat cut in church.
The people shall put his henchmen to death.

VI.77

[source unidentified]

Through the fraudulent victory of the deceived,
two armies joined, the German revolt:
one chief and his son murdered in their tent.
Florence and Imola [shall be] pursued into Romagna.

VI.78

[after the triumphant return of the Emperor Charles V in 1536 first to Rome, then to northern Italy, after his victory over the pirate Barbarossa at Tunis the previous year, when he was acclaimed as the hero of all Europe]

To vaunt the victory over the great Crescent Moon [Islam]
by the Romans shall the Eagle be acclaimed:
Pavia, Milan and Genoa shall not consent to it,
[but] then even by them the King shall be acclaimed as lord.

VI.79

[after the contemporary wars between France and the Empire in northern Italy]

Near the Ticino the inhabitants of the Loire,
Garonne and Saône, the Seine, Tain and Gironde
shall gain a bridgehead beyond the mountains:
battle joined, the Po swollen, flooded with water.

VI.80

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s constant predictions of Muslim invasion]

From Fez power shall spread to those of Europe,
fire to their cities, and the sword shall cleave:
the lord from Asia Minor [Turkey] by land and sea with a mighty horde,
blue-green, shall hound Christians to death.

VI.81

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber’s constant predictions of Muslim invasion]

Tears, screams and laments, howls [of] terror,
heart[s] inhuman, cruel, black and cold as ice:
by Lake Geneva, the greater Isles of Genoa,
they shall spill blood. Cold, famine, to none mercy.

VI.82

[after an unidentified Pope]

Across the deserts of open, wild place[s]
shall wander the nephew of the great Pontiff:
[he shall be] felled by seven with heavy clubs
by those who shall afterwards seize the Chalice [the Vatican] .

VI.83

[after the actions of Philip II in the Spanish Netherlands after his accession in 1556]

He who shall have so many honours and tendernesses
on his entry into Belgian Gaul
shortly thereafter shall commit so many gross acts
and shall be so warlike against the fleur-de-lys.

VI.84

[apparently after the story of Oedipus of Thebes]

He who, being lame, cannot reign in Sparta
shall do so much by seductive means
that the long and short of it is that he shall be arraigned
for targeting the King.

VI.85

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

The great city of Tarsus by the Gauls
shall be destroyed, all those in Turbans captives:
help [shall arrive] by sea from the Portuguese lord,
on the first day of summer, the feast-day of Saint Urban.

VI.86

[source unidentified]

The great Prelate, one day after his dream
interpreted as meaning the opposite,
from Gascony a monk shall happen to come,
who have the great prelate of Sens elected.

VI.87

[after the election in 1531 of Ferdinand of Hapsburg as successor to his brother Charles V, with his Imperial coronation planned for 1558 in Frankfurt, but expected to be opposed by Philip II]

The election made in Frankfurt
shall not take place, [since the lord of] Milan [Philip II] shall be against it:
his nearest kin shall seem so very strong
that he shall drive him out into the marshes beyond the Rhine.

VI.88

[probably after Froissart’s account in his Chroniques of the rescue and reinstatement of Don Pedro the Cruel of Castile to his throne by the Black Prince at the battle of Navarrette in 1367]

A great kingdom shall remain desolated:
by the Ebro troops shall be gathered.
The Pyrenees mountains shall give him consolation
when in May the lands shall be shaken.

VI.89

[mostly after Plutarch’s Life of Artaxerxes, II]

Bound hand and foot between two boats,
his face smeared with honey, and sustained with milk:
wasps and flies, [with] paternal love severely tried,
shall corrupt the Cup-bearer tempted by the Chalice.

VI.90

[source unidentified]

The stinking abominable disgrace
after the fact shall be congratulated,
the lord excused for not being favourable,
with the result that [the] Neptune [the Admiral] shall not be moved to make peace.

VI.91

[source unidentified]

By the one leading the naval war –
a frantic Red One [Cardinal?] – a severe, horrible dispute:
a captive [shall have] escaped from the elder one in the bale,
when a son shall be born to Lord Agrippa.

VI.92

[source unidentified]

The prince of such gracious beauty,
brought to the chief for the second time, [shall be] betrayed:
the city [having been put] to the sword, his face shall be burnt by powder.
Through too much killing the chief [shall be] hated by the King.

VI.93

[source unidentified]

The greedy prelate deceived by ambition,
nothing shall happen but he shall think too much of it.
He and his messengers shall be truly caught out:
a woodcutter would see it quite otherwise.

VI.94

[after the covert efforts of King François I to suppress Protestants while persecution of them was officially banned]

A King shall be angered by the See-breakers
when arms and armour shall be forbidden:
sugared poison [having been sprinkled] on the strawberries,
[they shall be] drowned and killed while saying ‘More land! More land!’

VI.95

[source unidentified]

[There shall be] Calumny against the younger son by a detractor
when dreadful warlike events shall occur,
the lesser party [being] doubtful to the elder one:
and soon in the kingdom there shall be partisan deeds.

VI.96

[after the sack of Rome by Charles V’s troops in 1527]

The Great City abandoned to the soldiers,
never was mortal tumult so nigh.
Oh, what a hideous calamity draws near!
But for one offence, nothing shall be pardoned it.

VI.97

[after the Annales Cassini for 1000 to 1212, with the last line of the verse referring (despite a slightly confused latitude) to the Norman capture of Naples (Greek Neapolis = ‘New City’) in 1139, when the Annals also record an explosive eruption of nearby Vesuvius for 1-8 June]

At five-and-forty degrees [fifty minutes and forty degrees?] the sky shall burn:
fire shall approach the great New City.
Violently a great scattered flame shall burst forth
when they shall attempt to try conclusions with the Normans.

VI.98

[after Strabo’s account of the sacking of Toulouse, sacred city of the Volcae, by the Roman consul Quintus Servilius Caepio in 106 BC, and his looting of the sacred treasures as per I.27]

Ruin for the Volcae, terrified with such fear:
their great city stained [with blood], a pestilential deed:
they shall plunder Sun [gold] and Moon [silver] and violate their temples
and the two rivers shall redden with flowing blood.

VI.99

[possibly after Livy’s account in his History of Rome (books XXI-XXX) of the invasion of Italy by Hannibal between 218 and 203 BC]

The skilled enemy shall turn about, confused,
his great army sick, and defeated by ambushes:
the Pyrenees and Pennine Alps shall be denied him,
while near the river discovering ancient amphorae.

[VI.100]

[plagiarised virtually word for word from Petrus Crinitus’s Latin warning to lawyers in his De honesta disciplina of 1504, as reprinted by Gryphius of Lyon in 1543]

Let those who read these verses consider them maturely!
Let the profane and ignorant mob keep away!
Away with you, all Astrologers, Idiots and Barbarians!
May he who does otherwise be subject to the sacred rite [i.e. go to hell].

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