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To the READER.
Friendly Reader,
Before you read the following Epistle, I would have you forewarned of a few things, that according to my estimation, it is very obscure, not intelligible in most places, being without any just construction, and besides the obscurity of the sense, the crabbiness of the expressions is such, that had not the importunity of the Bookseller prevailed, I would have left it out, but considering the respect due to antiquity, the satisfaction we owe to curious persons, for those who perhaps have thought the Book imperfect without it, we let it go, trusting to your candor and integrity.
Fairwell.
Since this sovereign observation I had, o most Christian and most victorious King, after my face, having long been beclouded, was presented by the deity to your most immense majesty, I, undeserving as I am, have remained perpetually dazzled to honor and venerate that day that I was presented in front of one so majestic and humane. I have searched for some opportunity to manifest my good heart and frank courage which by my power would obtain even greater cognizance of your most Serene Majesty. But I saw by the effects how impossible it was for me to declare myself, joined with my peculiar desire without long obstruction and obscurity, when I was suddenly seized and transported to the front of the face of the sovereign and premier monarch of the universe.
I was for a long time in such doubt as to whom I should dedicate these last three Centuries of my prophecies, making up the thousand. After having a long time to meditate on such an act, I have chosen your Majesty. I was not daunted like those mentioned by the author Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus: seeing offerings and gifts brought as sacrifices in the temples of the undying gods at that time, in the end they did not give much because of fervent defects and not having much to present in the temples. Seeing your royal splendor, accompanied with an incomparable humanity, I have placed my address, not as to the Kings of Persia of whom none were allowed to approach, but rather to a most prudent and most wise Prince to whom I have dedicated some of my nocturnal and prophetic calculations. These were composed mostly by a natural instinct, accompanied by a poetic passion, not by rules of poetry, and for the most part composed and in accord with Astronomical calculations corresponding to the years, months and weeks of the regions, lands and the most part of the villages and cities of all Europe, consisting also of Africa and part of Asia and by the change of regions, which approach for the most part all the climates. They are composed in a natural fashion.
Indeed, someone, who would do well to blow his nose, would reply that the rhythm is as easy as the sense is difficult. That, most humane king, is because most of the prophetic quatrains are so troubling that there is no making way through them, nor is there any interpreting Still, I wanted to leave a record in writing of the years, towns, cities and regions in which most of the events will come to pass, even those of the year 1585 and of the year 1606, reckoning from the present time, which is March 14, 1557, and going far beyond to events that will afterwards commence around the seventh millenary, profoundly calculated by my astronomical calculations are the years in which the adversaries of Jesus Christ and his Church will begin to multiply greatly.
The whole was composed and calculated in days and hours of election and good disposition, and more precisely when the judgment was accurate. And the day MINERVA FREE AND UNASKED, calculating the future adventures of times, by ages past understanding the present, and the lesson of time the regions will know they constrained the future. Everything will happen as it is written, nothing superfluous added for the year, THE POINT IS THAT THE FUTURE IS NOT COMPLETELY AND TRULY DETERMINABLE.
It is definitely true, sire, that my natural instinct was given to me by my ancestors who did not believe in predicting. It is this natural instinct that has been adjusted and accorded to my long suppositions, united with the freedom of the heart, spirit and courage from all cares through solitude. All of these by rest and tranquility of the spirit. All according and presaged in part by BRASS TRIPOD It is true that some would attribute to me that which does not belong to me. Only God the eternal, the tester of human hearts, pious, courageous and merciful, is the true judge. To him alone I pray that he chooses to defend me from the calumnies of evil men. These evil men also calumniously enquire, for whatever reason, how all your ancient progenitors, the Kings of France, have cured the scrofula, how those of other nations have cured the bites of snakes, how those of yet other nations have an instinct for the art of divination and still others which are too numerous to recite here.
After my death, despite those whose baseness of spirit will not be containable, due to the lessons of time my writing will have more import. However, if in my calculation of ages I failed to reproduce the entirety according to the will of the ages, I only ask that your most Imperial Majesty excuse me, for I protest in front of God and the Saints, that I do not pretend to put anything into this epistle that is in any way contrary to the Catholic faith, while consulting the astronomical calculations to the best of my ability.
If my calculations are not good and valid for all nations, know that everything has been calculated by the celestial lessons, by association of emotions inculcated at certain hours given to me by the emotions of my ancient progenitors.
But the abuse of time, Oh Serene King, require that such secrets and enemies are not demonstrated, except by enigmatic sentences having only a single sense and single meaning, without anything ambiguous inserted or any ambiguous calculation. But I was obsessed to cover them under a cloudy obscurity, approaching in the sentence of one of the thousand and two prophets since the creation of the world, the calculation of the Punic chronicle of Joel: I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UPON ALL FLESH, YOUR SONS WILL PROPHECY AND YOUR DAUGHTERS WILL PROPHECY. But such Prophecy proceeded from the mouth of the Holy Spirit, the three of which are the sovereign and endless power, joined with the celestial in some number to predict great and wondrous adventurers.
As for myself, I do not allocate such a title to me. I am not like God. I confess that such knowledge comes from God, to Him I render thanks, honor and immortal praise. I have put in here no divination coming from FATE. Rather all comes FROM GOD, AND FROM NATURE, and the most part accompanied with the movement of the celestial lessons. Much like seeing in a burning mirror with obscured vision I saw the great, sad and wonderful events and calamitous adventures to fall on the principle cultures. Firstly, of the temples of God. Secondly by those who, sustained by the earth, give themselves up to such decadence, with such a thousand other calamitous adventures, as by the lesson of time, will certainly happen.
Because God will look at the long sterility of the great dame, who will then conceive two principle children But she, being adjusted by the rashness of the Age of Death, in peril in the eighteenth year and not being able to pass the thirty sixth year will bear three males and one female, and of these two will not have had the same father, so great will the differences between the three be, but the three will be united and in accord so that the four parts of Europe will tremble.
By the least of age, the Christian monarchy will be sustained and augmented, sects elevated and suddenly cast down, the Arabs pushed back, kingdoms punished and new laws promulgated.
Of the other children the first will occupy the furious crowned lions whose paws are held over intrepid arms.
The second, accompanied, will descend into the Latins, that a second furious trembling is seen descending from Mount Jovis to mount the Pyrenees.
The Ancien Regime will not be transferred. A third inundation of blood will occur, and for a long time Mars will not be in Lent.
And the girl will be given for the conservation of the falling Christian Church. She will be dominated by the pagan sect of the new infidels. She will have two children, one faithful, the other unfaithful, by the confirmation of the Catholic Church. The other who, to his great confusion and late repentance will want to ruin, will set up three diverse regions. The Roman, the German and the Spanish which will make various sects by the martial hand. Abandoning the 50th and 52nd degree of height, will pay some homage to religions long ago north of the 48th degree of height. First by vain timidity, then the west, the center then the east will tremble. Such will be their potency that what they make by peace will survive their belligerent conquests. Their nature will be equal, but greatly different in creed.
After this the sterile Dame, of greater power than the second, will be received by two peoples. By the first made obstinate by those who had leadership over all. By the second, and by the third, which extends their forces towards the circuit of the east of Europe. In Pannonia they will be overwhelmed and slaughtered. By marine sail they will extend their power in the Adriatic. The Germanics and Myrmidons will succumb and the barbaric sect will be afflicted in the Latins and driven out.
Then the great empire of the Anti-Christ will begin in Attila and Xerxes, and will unleash a great innumerable host, so that the coming of the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the 48th degree, will make a transmigration, chasing out the loathing of the Anti-Christ who will make war against the royal one who is the great Vicar of Jesus Christ, and against his church, and its reign FOR A TIME AND TO THE END OF TIME.
Before this there will be a solar eclipse, the most obscure and terrible, which is ever seen since the death and passion of Jesus Christ. It will be in the month of October when the great translation will be made, and such will it be that will believe that the earth has lost its natural movement and will be plunged into an eternal and perpetual darkness. In the spring there will be omens, and thereafter extreme changes, changes of posts of reigns, great earthquakes, with the birth of the new Babylon, miserable daughter augmented by the abomination of the first holocaust. It will last for only seventy three years and seven months.
Afterwards there will issue from the stock which had remained sterile for so long, proceeding from the 50th degree, one who renews the whole Christian Church. And great peace will be made, union and concord, between some of the children of opposing ideas separated by diverse reigns. So profound will be the peace that the instigator and promoter of military factions will remain chained to the deepest of pits.
And the Kingdom of the Rabid, who counterfeits the sage, will be united. The countries, towns, cities, realms and provinces which will have abandoned their first ways to be delivered from captivity will lose their wearied liberty. Their faith will be lost in the perfect religion. They will strike to the left before returning to the right. For a long time the holy temples will be replaced. Thereafter the great dog, the huge mastiff, will commence the destruction of everything. Temples will be set up again as in ancient times and the clerk will be restored to his pristine position, and he will begin his whoring and luxury, committing a thousand crimes. On the eve of another desolation, when she is at her most high and sublime dignity, some potentates and military hands will rise and confront her, removing her double-edged swords. They will leave only her insignia, the curvature of which attracts them to her. The people will want to be righteous, not wishing to submit to the opposite with the sharp hand that touches earth. They shall provoke until there is born from the branch that was sterile a long time, one who will deliver the world from the benign and voluntary servitude it had put itself into, putting himself into the protection of Mars, depriving Jupiter of its honors and dignities, all for the free city that is confined and sits in a cramped Mesopotamia. The leader and governor will be thrown from the middle, hung in the air and ignorant of the conspiracy with the second Thrasybulus, who for a long time will have directed this. Then the immoderateness of the abominations, with a great shame, will be exposed and manifested in the shadows of the obscured light, and will cease towards the end of the change in reign.
The chiefs of the Church will be backward in the love of God, and several of them will apostatize from the true creed. Of the three sects, that which is in the middle, because of its own partisans, will be thrown a bit into decadence. The first, totally in Europe and the most part in Africa, will be exterminated by the third who, moved by the destitute spirit, will lead by luxury to libidinous adultery and lust. The common people will support it, chasing away the adherents of the legislators. They will tremble in the realms weakened by the easterners. It will seem as if God the Creator has loosed Satan from the infernal prison to birth the great Dog and Dohan, which will make a great abominable faction in the Churches. The reds and the whites, without hands or eyes, will not be able to judge of it and will be without their potency. Then there will be a persecution in the Churches, the like of which has never been. And of this fact will be born so great a pestilence that of the three parts of the world two will be depopulated, so much so that they will not know or ascertain the owners of fields and homes. Grass will grow in some cities as high as the knees. For the Clergy, desolation will be a fact. Martial men will come back from the City of the Sun, from Malta and the Stechade Isles. The great chain of the harbor which takes its name from the marine ox will be opened. A new incursion along the maritime beaches will be done, to deliver the Castillin from the first Muhammedan recapture. Their assault will not be in vain. And the home that once belonged to Abraham will be assailed by those who venerate the Jovialists. And the city of Achem will be surrounded and assailed from all sides by a very powerful force of warriors. Their maritime forces by the Westerners, and the reign will endure a great desolation, their greatest cities will be depopulated, those who enter will know the vengeance of God’s anger. The sepulcher of such great veneration will be and remain opened to the eyes of heaven, the Sun and the Moon. The holy place will be converted into a place for a herd large and small, and adapted for profane substances. Oh, what a calamitous affliction will pregnant women bear.
Finally the principal Oriental chief will be conquered by the Northerners and Westerners, and most of his people will be put to death, overwhelmed or scattered. The children of several unions will be imprisoned. Then will be accomplished the prophecy of the Royal Prophet, LET HIM HEAR THE GROANING OF THE CAPTIVES, THAT HE MIGHT DELIVER THE CHILDREN OF THOSE DOOMED TO DIE. What great oppression will then fall upon the Princes and Governors of Kingdoms, especially those which will be maritime and Eastern, who’s many tongues will be intermingled: the tongue of the Latins, and of the Arabs, via punic communications. And all the Oriental Kings will be hunted and exterminated, but not completely, by means of the forces of the Lords of Aquilon, and because of the nearness of our age, by the three secretly united in their search for death, insidiously ambushing each other. This renewed Triumvirate will last for seven years, so the renown of the sect will be extended around the world, and sustain the sacrifice of the holy and immaculate host. Then the two Lords of Aquilon will be victorious over the Orientals and such will be the noise made that all the East will tremble in terror of these two brothers, who are not brothers of the north.
And so, Sire, by this discourse I almost put confusion in these predictions, and when they will occur. Also, the strokes in the future for determining the amount of time that follows, it conforms little or not at all to others. Yet it was determined by Astronomical way, and by the Sacred Writings, and thus I could not be in error. I could have dated each quatrain to place down on paper the numbering of time, making the decay apparent. But it would not be agreeable to all, least of all the weary interpreters, sire, until your Majesty granted me power in order to do so, least it give slanderers reason to bite me.
Nevertheless, concerning the number of years from the creation of the world to the birth of Noah are one thousand five hundred and six years. And from the birth of Noah to the perfect creation of the ark, approaching the universal flooding of the world, passed six hundred years (Whether Solar or Lunar years or of ten blends) I hold what the Sacred Scriptures says, therefore they are Solar years. At the end of these six hundred years, Noah entered the ark to be saved from the ire of the deluge. The deluge was universal, lasting one year and two months. From the end of the deluge to the birth of Abraham, two hundred ninety five years, and from the birth of Abraham to the birth of Isaac one hundred years. And after Isaac came the birth of Jacob, sixty years. One hundred and thirty years passed between the time Jacob was born and the time he entered crossed into Egypt. And between Jacob in Egypt and the exit from slavery, four hundred thirty years. From the exit of Egypt to the building of the temple in the reign of Solomon in the fourth year of his reign, four hundred eighty years passed. And from the building of the temple to the time of Jesus Christ, according to the suppositions of the hierographs, four hundred ninety years were crossed. And thus by this calculation collected from the blessed letters, comes to about four thousand one hundred seventy three years and eight months, more or less. And after Jesus Christ, because of the diversity of sects, I will leave this.
I have calculated and recalculated the present prophecies according to the chain which contains its revolution, the whole by astronomical doctrine and according to my natural instinct. After a while, I found the time when Saturn will enter the 7th of April to the 15th of August, Jupiter on the 15th of June to the 7th of October, Mars from the 17th of April to the 22ndh of June, Venus from the 9th of April to the 22nd of May, Mercury from the 3rd of February to the 24th, after that from the First of June to the 24th, and from the 25th of September to the 14th of October, Saturn in Capricorn, Jupiter in Aquarius, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Pisces, Mercury in month in Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, the Moon in in Aquarius, the head(?) of the Dragon in Libra: the tail in its sign opposite to a conjunction of Jupiter with Mercury with has a quadran aspect of Mars with Mercury and the head of the Dragon will be with a conjunction of the Sun and Jupiter,...
The year will be peaceful without eclipse, and will bear all, and will be the start of the persecution of the Christian Church which will be greater than it ever was in Africa, it will last until the year 1792, which they will call the renewal of the age.
After this begins the Roman people will begin to stand up, dispelling some obscure shadows, recovering some of their ancient clarity, though not without great division and continual changes.
Afterwards Venice will raise its aisles in great force and power so very high, not far short of the might of ancient Rome.
At that time the great sails of Byzantium, allied with the Ligustiques and through the support and power of the Northern, will impede them so greatly that the two Cretans will be unable to maintain their faith. The arks built by the Warriors of ancient times will accompany them to the waves of Neptune. In the Adriatic great dissension will occur, and what had been united will be separated. The houses will be reduced to that which was, and is, a great city, comprehending the Pampotam, the Mesopotamia of Europe at forty five, the others at forty one, forty two and thirty seven. And in this time and in these countries the infernal power will act against the Church of Jesus Christ. The potency of the law will be the Second Anti-Christ, which will persecute the church and its true Vicar, by means of the power of temporal kings who, by their ignorance, will be seduced by words that will cut more than any double-edged sword in the hands of the insane. The reign of the said Anti-Christ will last only to the definement of the beginning of the age and the other one in the city of Plancus, accompanied by the ones of Modena, by Ferrera, supported by the Adriatic Liguriens, and of the nearness of the great Trinacrie.
Then will pass Mount Jovis, the Gallic Ogmium, accompanies by so great a number that the empire with its great law will be preserved for some time. During this there will be a great shedding of the blood of the innocents by the ones newly raised a little. Then by great floods the memories of such things, as contained in such instruments, will receive an immeasurable loss, even written records, and will delivered through the Aquilonians by the divine will. And Satan will be bound. And universal peace between human beings will be established, delivering the Church of Jesus Christ from any tribulation, though the Azas will want to mix in the honey of their malice and their pestilent seductions. This will be near the seventh millenary when the sanctuary of Jesus Christ will no longer be oppressed by the infidels who come from the north. The world approaches the great conflagration, although according to the computations in my prophecies, the course of time goes much farther.
Within the Epistle which some years ago I dedicated to my son Cesar Nostradamus, I declared some points openly enough without presage. But here, O Sire, are included several great and marvelous adventures, that those who will come after will see.
During this astrological calculation, in conformance with the Sacred Writings, the persecution of the Ecclesiastical people will find their origin by the potency of the Northern Kings joined with the Eastern ones. This persecution will last for eleven years, or a little less, then the chief king of the Northerners will fall. The years fulfilled the events will flow to the meridonal, where the persecution will be even more extreme for the space of three years, through the Apostatic seduction of one who holds absolute power over the military church. The holy people of God who observes his law, and any order of religion, will be greatly persecuted. So greatly will they be aggrieved that the blood of the true Ecclesiastics will flow everywhere. One of the horrible temporal Kings, by his adherents of law, will be given such praise, because he has shed more of human blood of Innocent Ecclesiastics than anyone has spilled of wine. This king will commit forfeits against the Church. Incredible amount of human blood will flow in the public streets and temples, as if water was raining, and the rivers will be reddened. In a naval battle, the sea will be reddened, so much so that one king will say to the other: THE SEA IS REDDENED BY NAVAL BATTLE. Then, in the same year, and in succeeding, there will be the most horrible pestilence, made more powerful by the famine that preceded it. Such great tribulations will never have occurred since the first foundation of the Christian Church. It will engulf all the Latin regions, remaining as relics in some Spanish speaking countries. Then the third King of the North, hearing the cries of the people of his principle title, will raise a great army and, breaking with the past, will put the most part back into its original state. The great Vicar of the hood will be returned to his pristine state, but desolate, and then left alone, and will find the HOLY OF HOLIES destroyed by paganism and the old and new Testaments will be thrown out and burned.
After the Anti-Christ will be the infernal prince, and again by the last law, everything, the kingdoms of Christendom, and those of the infidels, for a space of twenty five years, will endure more grievous wars and battles. Cities, towns, chateaus and other structures will be turned, desolated and destroyed with great bloodshed. Married women and widows will be violated. Children broken against the walls of towns. So many wrongs will be done by means of Satan, the infernal prince, that almost the whole world will be undone and desolate. Before these adventures, some rare birds will cry in the air: HUI, HUI and after a while will vanish.
After this has lasted a long time, there will be almost renewed another reign of Saturn and a golden age. God the Creator, hearing the affliction of his people, will say: Satan, be bound and cast into the depths of the bottomless pit. Then will begin a universal peace between God and humans, a peace that lasts a thousand years. The Ecclesiastical powers will be strongest, and then undone.
All of these figures are the just integration of Divine Writing with celestial visages which are known, by Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, and other combinations, as can be seen by some of the quatrains. I should have calculated much deeper and adapted some even more. But seeing, O Serene King, the censure that would raise so many difficulties, I withdraw my pen to its nocturnal repose.
MANY EVENTS, MOST POWERFUL OF ALL KINGS, OF THE MOST ASTOUNDING KIND WILL TRANSPIRE SOON. BUT I NEITHER COULD NOR WOULD FIT THEM ALL INTO THIS EPISTLE. HOWEVER, IN ORDER TO COMPREHEND CERTAIN HORRIBLE FACTS, A FEW HAD TO BE SET FORTH.
SO GREAT IS YOUR GRANDEUR AND HUMANITY BEFORE MEN, AND YOUR PIETY BEFORE THE GODS, THAT YOU ALONE SEEM WORTHY OF THE GREAT TITLE OF MOST CHRISTIAN KING, TO WHOM THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY IN ALL RELIGION SHOULD BE DEFERRED.
But I only request, O Most Clement King, by this singular and careful humanity of yours, to hear only the desire of my courage and the sovereign project which is in obedience to your most Serene Majesty, ever since my eyes approached your solar splendor, which the greatness of my labor cannot attain to or acquire.
From Salon, this 27th of June, 1558.
Written by Michael Nostradamus at Salon in Provence.
