Century 9

IX.1

[after the manuscript writings of Étienne de la Boétie of Bordeaux covertly criticising the Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency]

In the house of the translator of Bourg,
the letter shall be found on the table.
One-eyed, red-haired, white-headed, he shall make [people] aware
of what shall change with the new Constable.

IX.2

[in part after Livy’s account of the semi-legendary King Numa’s founding of the state oracle on the Aventine Hill in Rome in around 710 BC]

From the top of the Aventine Hill a voice [shall be] heard:
‘Away! Away on both sides!’
With blood the anger of the Red Ones [Cardinals] shall be appeased:
from Rimini and Prato the Colonnas [shall be] expelled.

IX.3

[after two omens reported by Conrad Lycosthenes in his Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon of 1557 – the Ravenna monster of 1511 (see II.32 above), and the calf with a bearded human face born at Kleisdorf in 1556 – while (confusingly) a second monster mentioned in the same paragraph was indeed taken to be brought before the Pope]

The great cow, very disturbing to Ravenna,
[shall be] taken, shut in, by fifteen to [Pope] Farnese:
at Rome shall be born two double-headed monsters.
Blood, fire, flood, the greatest nobles hanged.

IX.4

[after the Great Western Church Schism of 1378, when two popes – Urban VI and Clement VII – were elected at the same time after a huge thunderstorm that left the Vatican awash, until the former was preferred under pressure from the mob, who invaded and sacked the Vatican. The latter then fled to Avignon.]

The following year, revealed by flood,
two leaders [shall be] elected, [but] the first shall not last:
fleeing eclipse, one of them shall seek refuge,
the house plundered which shall maintain the first.

IX.5

[possibly after the contemporary Duke of Tuscany]

He shall seem as the third toe to the first
to a new monarch of reduced height
who shall occupy Pisa and Lucca as Tyrant [Ruler].
He shall correct the failings of his predecessor.

IX.6

[source unidentified]

Innumerable English in Guienne
shall occupy under the name of ‘Anglaquitaine’
Lapalme, Bordelais in Languedoc,
which they shall name after Barboxitaine [the Western Bearded One].

IX.7

[source unidentified]

He who shall open the tomb once found
and shall not close it promptly,
evil shall befall him, and it shall be impossible to prove
whether it would be better for him to be a Breton or a Norman King.

IX.8

[source unidentified]

The younger son, once made King, shall put his father to death
after the conflict over a dishonourable death:
a document having been found, suspicion shall cause remorse,
when a hunted wolf is laid on the couch.

IX.9

[after the floods that struck much of Western Europe in September 1557, devastating Toulouse and uncovering various remains and artefacts (including, allegedly, an ‘ever-burning lamp’) in and around the ruins of the ancient Temple of Diana at Nîmes]

When the lamp burning with inextinguishable fire
shall be found in the temple of the Vestals
(a child having found the flame while passing water through a sieve),
Nîmes shall perish by water: at Toulouse the covered market shall collapse.

IX.10

[source unidentified]

The child of a monk and nun exposed to die
shall be killed by a she-bear and be carried off by a boar.
By Foix and Pamiers battle shall be set:
against Toulouse Carcassonne shall send out scouts.

IX.11

[source unidentified]

The just one wrongly shall they put to death
publicly and remove from the midst:
so great a pestilence in that place shall arise,
that the judges shall be constrained to flee.

IX.12

[after the discovery (following the disastrous floods of 9 September 1557) of numerous pagan ritual objects from the now-ruined temple of Diana that had been thrown into the Sacred Lake at Nîmes with the coming of Christianity]

So many silver images of Diana and Mercury
shall be found in the lake
[by] a potter searching for fresh clay
[that] he and his family shall be steeped in gold.

IX.13

[source unidentified]

The exiles around Sologne,
[shall be] led by night to Auxois on foot.
Two [The leaders?] of Modena by the fierce [Duke of] Bologna,
shall be discovered [flushed out] by Byzantine [Greek] fire.

IX.14

[source unidentified]

In dyers’ cauldrons [that have been] placed on the flat,
[full of] wine, honey and oil, and built over furnaces,
the blameless so-called malefactors shall be plunged.
Seven shall be wiped out amidst the murderers’ cannon-smoke.

IX.15

[source unidentified]

Near Perpignan the Red Ones [Cardinals] [shall be] detained,
those in the centre struck down and led away,
three cut in pieces and five half-starved,
for the Lord and Prelate of Burgundy.

IX.16

[source unidentified]

Out of Castelfranco the throng shall emerge:
the disagreeable ambassador shall split away.
Those from the coast shall be in the thick of it,
and they shall deny entry to the great gulf.

IX.17

[source unidentified]

The third First [Lord] [shall do] worse than Nero did:
it shall be seen by the brave how much human blood shall flow.
He shall cause the furnace[s] to be rebuilt:
the Golden Age dead, a new, shameful King.

IX.18

[after current fears for the Lord Constable Anne de Montmorency, who had been captured by the Spaniards at the disastrous battle of St-Quentin of 1557]

The Lily of the Dauphiné shall bear into Nancy,
as far as Flanders the Elector of the Empire:
new imprisonment for Lord Montmorency,
far from known paths delivered to punishment by fire.

IX.19

[source unidentified]

In the middle of the forest of Mayenne,
with the Sun in Leo, lightning shall strike:
the great bastard issued from the Lord of Maine
on that day a bloody point shall enter at Fougères.

IX.20

[after the contemporary Wars of Religion and pages 137-40 of Charles Estienne’s travellers’ guide-book of 1552 entitled Le Guide des Chemins de France]

By night shall come through the forest of Rennes
the Duke via Vautorte, Ernée and Pierre Blanche.
The black [Benedictine] monk turned to grey [soldier’s uniform] in Varennes,
chosen as captain, causes tempest, fire, bloody wounds.

IX.21

[source unidentified]

At [Near?] the lofty church of Saint-Sologne at Blois,
at night on the bridge over the Loire, the Prelate killing the King outright,
a messenger shall bring news of victory in the marshes of Olonne,
whence the abhorrent Prelacy of the Whites [Protestants?].

IX.22

[source unidentified]

The King and his court [being] in the place of the old covered market,
at the church facing the palace
in the garden [shall be] the Dukes of Mantua and Alba.
Alba from Mantua [shall receive] a dagger in the tongue and palate.

IX.23

[after the death of the Comte d’Enghien, on whom a coffer fell from the roof while playing in the snow with the Dauphin François in February 1546, and François I’s consequent expiatory Easter pilgrimage to the abbey of Ferrières in Sologne, just south of Blois]

The younger son playing outdoors, down [shall fall] the barrel
from the top of the roof squarely on his head.
His father the King at the church of Saint-Sologne
shall sanctify by sacrifice the festival incense.

IX.24

[source unidentified]

Through the windows of the palace on a rock,
the two little royal ones shall be snatched:
they shall pass Orléans, Paris, the abbey of Saint-Denis
with a nun, swallowing green-husked chestnuts.

IX.25

[source unidentified]

Crossing the bridges [seas], he shall approach Les Rosiers,
arriving late, sooner than he thought.
The new Spaniards shall arrive at Béziers,
whose latter pursuit shall shatter the enterprise.

IX.26

[possibly after the Imperial expedition of 1527 to sack Rome, co-commanded by Georg von Frundsberg]

To the one who has left Nice known by a harsh-writ name,
the great Cope [Pope] shall unknowingly present a gift:
near Voltri with its walls of green capers
after Piombino the wind [shall blow] in earnest.

IX.27

[after the arrival of Pope Clement VII in Marseille in 1533 to celebrate the wedding of the Dauphin Henri (later Henri II) to the then Catherine de’ Medici in a specially constructed wooden palace connected to the royal one by a covered bridge, departing again via Nice, which was then part of the Duchy of Savoy]

The bridge shall be enclosed by a wooden wind-guard:
the haughty guest shall strike the Dauphin.
The old fudger shall continue his journey in the company of wooden vessels,
passing far beyond the legal borders of the Duke.

IX.28

[probably after the Mirabilis Liber 1522/3]

An allied fleet from the port of Marseille
[shall enter] Venice in order to march on Hungary:
it shall leave from the gulf and bay of Illyria [Dalmatia].
Devastation in Sicily: for the Ligurians [northern Italians], cannon shot.

IX.29

[after the recapture of Calais from the Empire in January 1558 by François Duke of Guise, and the truce of September 1557 eventually leading to the restoration of St-Quentin to France]

When the man who shall yield to none
shall wish to abandon the place taken, yet not taken,
[with the aid of] fireships through the swamps, pitch at Charleroi,
St-Quentin and Calais shall be recaptured.

IX.30

[after the invasion mounted on behalf of the Normans of Apulia against the Byzantine Empire by Robert Guiscard in 1081-2, and the subsequent appeal for aid sent by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus to Venice (not Spain)]

At the port of Pula and of San Nicolas
Normans shall perish in the Gulf of Kvarner:
captured by Byzantium, they shall cry woe in the streets.
Help [shall come] from Cadiz and the great Philip.

IX.31

[after the Italian and Sicilian earthquakes of 1542 and the consequent collapse of the campanile of the church of St George at Caltagirone, near Catania]

Through the earthquake at Mortara
St George at Caltagirone [shall be] in a state of semi-collapse.
Peace once asleep, war shall awaken:
at Easter in the Church schisms [shall be] opened.

IX.32

[after the discovery of the obelisk of Augustus Caesar in 1502 during the closing years of the reign of Pope Alexander VI, who engaged in vigorous hostilities against the Ottomans]

[When] a column of fine porphyry [shall be] found deeply buried
with Imperial inscriptions under the base,
against the curved-beards the Roman power [shall be] tried.
The fleet shall be busy at the harbour of Mitylene.

IX.33

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

[The Gallic] Hercules [shall become] King of Rome and of Denmark,
nicknamed Leader of Tripartite Gaul:
Italy and the waters of St. Mark [Venice] shall quake.
He shall be renowned as the monarch who is first above all.

IX.34

[after D’Auton’s account, in his Chroniques de Louis XII, of the revenge-campaign launched against Spain by Louis XII in 1503 in support of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise]

The share having been cancelled, the Mitred One shall be dismayed:
the counter-conflict shall sweep over the country of tiled roofs.
For betraying five hundred one shall be blamed
through the accounts for oil-provisions at Narbonne and Salces.

IX.35

[an inaccurate forecast for the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and his nephew Philip II of Spain]

And Ferdinand shall be escorted by a blond-haired woman:
he shall abandon Florence and follow the Macedonian [i.e. Philip II]:
if absolutely necessary he shall abandon his course,
and shall march against the Myrmidon [his faithful servant].

IX.36

[source unidentified]

A great King [shall be] captured and in the hands of a young man:
not far from Easter, [amid] confusion, a stab with a knife,
captive[s] for life when lightning strikes the mast,
and when three brothers shall wound and murder each other.

IX.37

[after the Annales de Toulouse for 1536, recording severe floods in December of that year]

Bridge and mills [shall be] overthrown in December:
the Garonne shall rise to such a high level
[that] walls, edifices at Toulouse [shall be] thrown down,
so that none shall recognise his locality. The Marne as well.

IX.38

[source unidentified]

An invasion at Blaye near La Rochelle [shall be made] by the English,
bypassing the great Macedonian [Philip II].
Not far from Agen shall wait the Gaul:
deceived by talks, [he shall go to] help Narbonne.

IX.39

[source unidentified]

In Arbisola to Verona and Carcara
[he shall be] led by night to seize Savona:
the lively Gascon at La Turbie and L’Escarène
behind the old wall a new palace shall seize.

IX.40

[source unidentified]

Near Saint-Quentin, in Bourlon Wood,
in the abbey the Flemings shall be cut to pieces:
the two younger sons half-stunned by blows,
their followers hard-pressed and the guard all hacked to shreds.

IX.41

[after the temporary seizure of Avignon from the Papacy by Henri II’s father, François I, in 1536, followed by protests from Pope Paul III – i.e. Alessandro Farnese]

The great Chyren [Henri (!)] shall seize Avignon:
from Rome [shall come] honeyed hundred letters full of bitterness.
A diplomatic letter shall be issued by Canino [Farnese],
Carpentras captured by a black [Moorish?] duke with a red feather.

IX.42

[after the triumphant expedition against the Ottoman commander Barbarossa in Tunis mounted by the Emperor Charles V in June 1535]

From Barcelona, from Genoa and Venice
from Sicily and near Monaco assembled,
they shall take aim against the Barbarian fleet.
The Barbarian [shall be] driven right back to Tunis.

IX.43

[probably after the triumphant expedition against the Ottoman commander Barbarossa in Tunis mounted by the Emperor Charles V in June 1535]

On the point of landing, the Crusader army
shall be watched by the Ishmaelites [Arabs]:
assaulted on all sides by marauding ships,
[these shall be] quickly attacked by ten chosen galleys.

IX.44

[a failed prophecy of an attack by the Emperor Charles V on the Protestant enclave at Geneva]

Flee, flee Geneva, each and every one!
Saturn shall change himself from gold to iron –
the opposite! Zopira [Charles V] shall exterminate you all.
Before he arrives the sky shall show signs [of it].

IX.45

[probably after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

He shall never tire of demanding more:
the great False One shall attain his dominion.
Far from his Court, he shall cause to be countermanded
Piedmont, Picardy, Paris – the worst of tyrants.

IX.46

[source unidentified]

Begone, flee the Red Ones [Judges of the Inquisition] of Toulouse:
make your sacrificial expiation!
The Lord of Evil under the shade of the gourds
shall strangle [you] to death by ‘carnal prognostication’ [entrail-reading].

IX.47

[source unidentified]

The signers of a disgraceful deliverance,
especially having the mob otherwise minded,
shall think that the change of monarch will put them in peril:
locked in a cage they shall see each other face to face.

IX.48

[after unidentified bad weather, presumably at Bordeaux]

The great city of the Ocean Sea
[shall be] surrounded by icy marshes:
at the winter solstice and in the spring
it shall be afflicted by frightful gales.

IX.49

[after Froissart’s account in his Chroniques of the deposition of the frivolous King Edward II of England in 1326 by a specially summoned parliament of nobles, followed by his secret murder, connived at from Flanders by his runaway Queen Isabella]

Ghent and Brussels shall march against Antwerp:
London’s Senate Shall put to death their King.
Wine shall with him usurp [too much] the role of wit
for them: the kingdom shall be in disarray.

IX.50

[source unidentified]

Mendosus [the False One] shall soon attain the height of his power,
putting behind him part of Lorraine:
the Red One [the Cardinal?], the male of the interregnum,
shall blame The Young One. [There shall be] fear and terror of the Arabs.

IX.51

[after the contemporary Wars of Religion, and the Protestant leader John Calvin in particular]

Against the Red Ones [Cardinals] the sects shall conspire:
peace shall be undermined by fire, water, sword and rope.
At the point of death [shall be] those who shall plot,
except for one who above all shall ruin the entire world.

IX.52

[after the contemporary Wars of Religion]

Peace approaches from one side, and war [from the other]:
never was persecution so great.
Men, women shall mourn: innocent blood dashed to the ground.
And this shall be for the whole of France.

IX.53

[after the legendary cruelties of the Emperor Nero, possibly assimilated to the story of Nebuchadnezzar and his Fiery Furnace]

The young Nero in the three fireplaces
shall have pages thrown to be burnt alive:
happy those who shall be far from such schemings!
Three of his relations shall place him in fear of his life.

IX.54

[source unidentified]

He shall arrive at Porto Corsini,
near Ravenna, who shall plunder the lady:
in the depths of the sea [shall be] the legate from Lisbon.
Hidden under a rock they shall carry off seventy souls.

IX.55

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

[After] The horrible war that is being prepared in the West,
the following year shall come the pestilence,
so very horrible that neither young, old, nor beast [is spared].
Blood, fire. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter in France [Aries?].

IX.56

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber 1522/3]

The army near Houdan shall pass Goussainville
and to the Scythians shall surrender its standard:
in an instant more than a thousand shall convert,
seeking to chain their leaders to pillar and post.

IX.57

[possibly after the death of the Roman general and Praetor Drusus]

In the place of Drusus a King shall rest,
and seek a law to change the Anathema [on his head?]:
when – the sky shall thunder so very loudly –
it is reimposed, the King shall kill himself.

IX.58

[apparently after the French Wars of Religion]

On the left bank at the place named Vitry,
the three Red Ones [Cardinals] of France shall be awaited:
All [Two] shall be killed: the black [Dominican?] Cardinal not murdered,
[but] by the Bretons restored to safety.

IX.59

[probably after the contemporary activities of Nicholas de Lorraine, whose daughter Louise, born in 1553, would eventually marry King Henri III]

At La Ferté the Vidame shall seize
Nicholas in red raiment who had sired [the new] life –
big Louise shall be born, who shall scream [the house down] –
[for] giving Burgundy to the Bretons on a whim.

IX.60

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s predictions of a vast Muslim invasion of Europe]

At war shall be the Barbarians in black headdress:
at the bloodshed Dalmatia shall quake.
Great Ishmael [The Arabs] shall mount an advance.
The admirals shall tremble: help from Lusitania [Portugal].

IX.61

[in part after contemporary Muslim pirate raids along the Mediterranean coast]

Pillage [shall be] committed along the sea-coast.
To Cittanova [Naples?] and similar towns [shall be] brought
many Maltese by decree of Messina.
Closely confined, they shall be poorly rewarded.

IX.62

[after an unidentified episode from the Crusades]

For the Lord of Ceramon-agora [Usak],
the Crusaders shall all be staked out in rows:
for long-lasting opium and mandrake,
[being] October’s ransom, a third shall be released.

IX.63

[after the contemporary Was of Religion]

Wailing and tears, screams and great howls
near Narbonne, in Bayonne and in Foix.
Oh, what horrible calamities and changes
before Mars has completed a few revolutions!

IX.64

[after current hostilities between France and Spain]

The Macedonian [Philip II] shall cross the Pyrenees mountains
in March [on the warpath?]: Narbonne shall offer no resistance.
By sea and land he shall carry on such great manoeuvres,
the chief having no safe territory to stay.

IX.65

[source unidentified]

He shall enter the patch of moonlight,
where he shall be captured and taken to foreign territory.
The unripe fruits shall be a great scandal:
great blame to one, [to the other] great praise.

IX.66

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

Peace and unity there shall be, and changes
of state and office: the low [shall be raised] on high and the high brought very low.
To prepare roads shall be the first fruit [result] of the torment.
War shall cease: [there shall be] civil lawsuits and quarrels.

IX.67

[apparently after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

Up on the mountains around the Isère
near the rock of Valence shall be assembled
from Châteauneuf, Pierrelatte, and Donzère,
against the Crescent [the Muslims] the Romans, gathered [to defend] the Faith.

IX.68

[source unidentified]

The Lord of Montelimar shall be extinguished:
the evil shall come at the junction of Saône and Rhône [Lyon]
[through] soldiers hidden in the woods on Lucy’s day.
Never was there so horrible a throne [king?].

IX.69

[possibly after the omens mentioned by Conrad Lycosthenes in his Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon of 1557]

One the mountain of Bully and L’Arbresle
the proud ones of Grenoble shall be hidden
beyond Lyon: there shall come upon them such heavy hail.
Of the locusts in the land not a third shall remain.

IX.70

[after the contemporary Wars of Religion]

Sharp weapons [shall be] hidden within the torches
in Lyon on the day of the [Holy] Sacrament:
those of Vienne shall all be hacked to pieces,
fortifications [put up] throughout the Latin cantons.

IX.71

[in part after the Mirabilis Liber’s Prophecy of St Vincent]

In holy places hairy animals [shall be] seen,
with him who shall not dare [to show himself by] day:
at Carcassonne to shame him suitably
he shall be set for a more ample stay.

IX.72

[after the contemporary struggle between the Protestants of Toulouse and the established Catholic religion]

Once more shall the holy churches be polluted
and plundered by the Senate of Toulouse:
[once] Saturn has completed two or three cycles,
in April, May, people [shall arrive] of a new leaven [cast].

IX.73

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s predictions of Arab invasion]

The blue-turbaned King shall enter Foix
and shall reign less than a revolution of Saturn [29 years],
the white-turbaned King bending to Byzantium[’s will]:
sun, Mars and Mercury near [in] Aquarius.

IX.74

[after Nostradamus’s paganistic expectations for Protestant Toulouse]

In the murderous city of fertile soil,
lest again and again many ploughing oxen be sacrificed,
[they shall] return again to the honours of Artemis
and bury [the] dead bodies dedicated to Vulcan.

IX.75

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

To those of Ambracia [Arta] and the country of Thrace
the Gallic people shall bring chests of aid by sea
[who] in Provence [left their] perpetual mark,
with remains of their custom[s] and laws.

IX.76

[possibly after the burning alive in 1553 of the ‘heretic’ Michael Servetus at Geneva]

With the rapacious and bloodthirsty Black [Suleiman the Magnificent?],
issued from the bed of the inhuman Nero,
between two rivers [in Iraq], on the host’s left flank,
he shall be murdered by the Young Baldy [John Calvin?].

IX.77

[apparently after the marital adventures of King Henry VIII of England]

Once having taken over the kingdom, the King shall plot
the imprisonment of the lady, [who shall be] condemned to death by lot:
they shall deny life to the Queen’s son,
and [lodge] the mistress in the consort’s castle.

IX.78

[after the story of Helen of Epirus, who married a Hohenstaufen, was widowed, captured on her way back to Greece and died in 1272]

The Greek lady with the beauty of Lais,
[shall be] made happy by countless suitors:
displaced to the Spanish kingdom,
[she shall be] taken captive and shall die a miserable death.

IX.79

[source unknown]

The chief of the fleet through deceit and trickery
shall make the timid ones emerge from their galleys:
once out, [they shall be] murdered by the chrism[Christ]-denying [Muslim?] chief.
Then through ambush they shall pay him his just deserts.

IX.80

[in part apparently after the Arab pirate raids of the day, possibly assimilated to the predictions of the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

The Duke shall want to exterminate his men:
he shall send the strongest to foreign places.
Through tyranny he shall ruin Pisa and Lucca,
then the Barbarians [Arabs] shall gather grapes without [making] wine.

IX.81

[source unidentified]

The crafty King shall intend by ambushes
to attack his enemies on three sides:
[through] a remarkable number of monkish arms
the enterprise of his agent shall fail.

IX.82

[possibly after the secession by England of Boulogne to France in June 1546]

Amid flood and mighty pestilence,
the great city shall long be besieged:
the sentry and mortmain dead,
[it shall be] suddenly captured, but in no way looted.

IX.83

[after the Mirabilis Liber’s end-of-the-world prophecies]

[With the] Sun in twenty degrees of Taurus, the earth shall quake so strongly:
the great crowded theatre it shall ruin.
Air, sky and land shall darken and be troubled:
then [even] the faithless shall call upon God and the saints.

IX.84

[in part after recent archaeological discoveries resulting from floods]

The King shall have the sacrificial burial uncovered
after discovering its origin:
a torrent shall open the tomb of marble and lead
of a great Roman with Medusan device.

IX.85

[after the campaigns of Bertrand du Guesclin, later Constable of France, in southern France during the Hundred Years’ War]

They shall pass Guienne, Languedoc and the Rhône,
from Agen holding [course] for Marmande and La Réole:
through opening the rampart [throwing open its gates] Marseille shall hold its throne.
Conflict near Saint-Paul-de-Mausole.

IX.86

[after unidentified contemporary military manoeuvres]]

From Bourg-la-Reine they shall come straight to Chartres,
and near Pont St-Antony they shall pause:
seven crafty as polecats for peace
shall provide an entry for the army into a closed Paris.

IX.87

[after unidentified lesson by a noble to a lazy cleric]

In an out-of-the-way spot by the forest of Torfou,
by the hermitage shall be placed the church:
the Duke of Étampes through the ruse he invented
shall make an example of the prelate of Montlhéry.

IX.88

[after military activities apparently related to the Imperial siege of Thérouanne in 1553]

Calais, Arras [shall send] help to Thérouanne:
a pact and the like the spy shall simulate.
Savoyard troops shall come down through Roanne,
[but be] diverted by people digging up the road.

IX.89

[after the ‘fortunate years’ of Philip II of Spain from 1554]

For seven years fortune shall favour Philip:
he shall beat back down the efforts of the Arabs.
Then in the south a perplexing reverse –
young Ogmion [Henri II?] shall destroy his stronghold.

IX.90

[presumably after the campaigns against the Ottomans of the Emperor Charles V]

A captain of great Germany
shall make his way by way of pretended help
to the King of Kings in support of [and leader of?] Pannonia [Hungary],
whose revolt shall cause a great flow of blood.

IX.91

[source unidentified]

The horrible plague Perinthus and Nicopolis
the Peninsula [Peloponnese] and Macedonia shall hold:
it shall lay waste Thessaly and Amfipolis,
an unknown woe, and [St] Anthony’s refusal [collapse of social life?].

IX.92

[after unidentified military activities around Naples]

The King shall desire to enter the New City:
to drive out the enemy, they shall
arrange for a freed prisoner to spread false information.
the King shall be outside: he shall stay far from the enemy.

IX.93

[after an unidentified episode in the wars between Henri II and Philip II of Spain]

With the enemies very far from the fort,
by wagons the bastion [building-stones] [shall be] brought
onto the crumbling walls of Bourges
when Hercules [Ogmion, and thus Henri II] the Macedonian [Philip II] shall beat.

IX.94

[after the contemporary wars between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans]

Weak groups shall be joined together,
false enemies the strongest in attack.
The weak ones having been assailed, Bratislava trembles:
Lübeck and Meissen shall take the Barbarian [Turkish] side.

IX.95

[after unidentified military activities in northern Italy]

The newly appointed one shall lead the army,
almost cut off, as far as the shore,
retaining the aid of the Milanais elite.
The Duke [shall be] deprived of his eyes at Milan in an iron cage.

IX.96

[after other unidentified military incident]

The army having been denied entry to the city,
the Duke shall enter through persuasion.
To the weak gates the army [shall be] silently led:
they shall set fire to them. Death and bloodshed.

IX.97

[after the Imperial invasion of Provence in 1524, with special reference to the vast necropolis known as the Les Alyscamps at Arles]

The forces from the sea [having been] divided into three parts,
the second shall run out of supplies:
desperately seeking the Elysian Fields [Les Alyscamps],
the first to enter the breach shall gain the victory.

IX.98

[source unidentified]

Those afflicted through the fault of a single one shall be stained,
turning them over to the opposing party:
he shall send word to those of Lyon to force them
to hand over the great chief of Malta.

IX.99

[source unidentified]

The north wind shall cause the siege to be raised:
over the walls they shall throw ashes, lime and dust.
Through rain afterwards, which shall be much worse for them,
their last help [shall lie] over against their frontier.

IX.100

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3, assimilated to the battle of Actium of 31 BC]

The naval battle by night shall be overcome:
[through] fire in the ships, for the West ruin.
With fresh red ochre the great ship having been painted,
anger to the vanquished, and victory in the drizzle/mist.

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