NOSTRADAMUS AND THE ARAB REVOLT

Attacks by other nations

2011-03-20T02:23:00.000-07:00

[For individual Arab countries, see below]

Before the Nostradamaniacs try to bamboozle you into thinking that Nostradamus predicted the current upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East, on their usual principle that Nostradamus Predicted Whatever Has Just Happened, please bear in mind that his book The Prophecies refers to foreign attacks (or rather counter-attacks) on a particular Arab country only once, and that country is not Libya (for which see bottom section below).

Here is the verse in question. It is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For a more literal, word-for-word translation, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010 – see RH panel at bottom.). You can explore the originals for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with the latter book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

II.79. Original 1555 text

La barbe crespe & noire par engin

Subjuguera la gent cruele & fiere.

Le grand CHYREN ostera du longin

Tous les captifs par Seline baniere.

By ruse he of the curly beard and black

The race so cruel and proud shall subjugate:

Great CHYREN from their dungeons shall bring back

All those by lunar flag incarcerate.

Source: The verse is clearly based on the Emperor Charles V’s triumphant expedition to Tunis of 1535, in which he succeeded in freeing thousands of Christian prisoners held by the Ottoman pirate Barbarossa, subsequently being feted throughout Europe as the hero of the hour (see also VI.70, VI.85). As Batman would later translate Lycosthenes’ terse report of it, Charles the Emperour tooke Tunis in Affricke. This in turn is then applied to Charles's French rival (and Nostradamus's current monarch) Henri II (Chyren is a direct anagram of his name's Latin form Henric[us], and was well known as such at the time) and then projected into the future in connection with the Mirabilis liber’s predictions of the liberation of Europe from its future Muslim invaders: There shall emerge from Gaul a race of Christians who shall make war on them and shall pierce them with the sword, shall take away their women captive and shall slaughter their children. In their turn, the sons of Ishmael shall encounter both sword and tribulation. And the Lord shall return to them the evil that they shall have done in sevenfold measure. (Prophecy of Pseudo-Methodius): The king of the Franks, Greeks and Romans, reclaiming for himself the whole empire of Christendom, shall devastate all the pagan islands and cities, shall overthrow the temples of idolatry, and shall summon all the pagans to baptism (Prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl).

Hardly, then, a prediction of today’s events!

The Arab world generally

2011-03-20T02:21:00.000-07:00

Nostradamus’s book The Prophecies specifically mentions the Arabs (as opposed to the Arabic language) only thirteen times, namely at III.31, IV.39, V.25, V.27, V.47, V.55, V.73, V.74, VI.54, VI.55, IX.89, X.62 and X.63. Nearly all of these refer only to areas outside the area in question, and mainly concern future Arab attacks on Europe, followed by counter-attacks by the Europeans. They also refer some twenty-four times to the Barbares, though most of these references seem to be to the Ottoman Turks (whom Nostradamus often treats as ‘Arabs’). The only verses that seems to refer specifically to dissensions within the Arab world itself are VI.54 (see under ‘Morocco’, below) and IX.73.

Here is the latter verse. It is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For a more literal, word-for-word translation, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010 – see RH panel at bottom.). You can explore the original editions for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with the latter book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

IX.73. Original text of 1568 edition

Dans Fois entrez Roy ceiulee Turbao,

Et regnera moins revolu Saturne

Roy Turban blanc Bizance cœur ban

Sol Mars, Mercure pres la hurne.

Blue-turbaned chief takes Foix [Fez?] and enters it.

E’er Saturn’s back he’ll no more rule the land:

White-turbaned shall in Istanbul submit.

Sun, Mars and Mercury in Aquarius stand.

Source: Following on from the previous verse, once again the Mirabilis liber’s prediction of a mighty Muslim invasion and occupation of Europe, which Nostradamus evidently expects to last less than thirty years from the date of composition – or else an upheaval in Morocco (see below). In his 1566 Almanach Nostradamus makes it clear that the ‘blue-turbans’ and ‘white turbans’ are contemporary warring Muslim sects – namely the Shi’ites of Persia and the Sunni of Turkey. The astrology for what is evidently expected to be the eventual collapse of the Ottoman empire is for 1586. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. See II.2.

Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine

2011-03-06T01:59:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies mentions the area in question (which Nostradamus would simply have known by its Roman name of ‘Syria’) only once, namely at III.97.

Here is the verse in question. It is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, based on that in my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For more literal, word-for-word translations, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010 -- see details below). You can explore the originals for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with the latter book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

III.97. Original 1555 text

Nouvelle loy terre neufve occuper

Vers la Syrie, Judee, & Palestine:

Le grand empire barbare corruer,

Avant que Phebés son siecle determine.

A new law shall a new land hold in sway

Near Syria’s, Palestine’s, Judaea’s shore,

Th’ Empire barbaric than shall melt away

Ere lunar Phoebe’s age is fully o’er.

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s decidedly optimistic prediction of the eventual defeat of Islam by Christendom (see I.55). As explained by Richard Roussat in his Livre de l’estat et mutations des temps of 1549/50, this was due to occur during the course of the expected ‘age of the sun’ (1887-2242). ‘For to that place from which the light of our Faith came,’ writes Roussat of that age (page 89), ‘thither shall it return -- that is to say to the region of the Orient, or Levant... when the inhabitants of the East shall accept our Faith, our Law and Gospel.’ Nostradamus, however, evidently expects it to happen even earlier than that, during the ‘age of the moon’ (1533-1887) -- unless, that is, he is confusing Phoebe (the moon, symbolic of Islam) with Phoebus (the sun, symbolic of Christianity). The ‘barbaric Empire’ is evidently taken by Nostradamus to refer to the all-powerful Ottoman Empire that was threatening Europe during his time. In that case, he turned out to be nearly right, at least in the matter of timing, since the Empire finally collapsed in 1922!

But of Arab revolts the prophecy says nothing, unless deliberately twisted to fit while ignoring its likely provenance.

Morocco

2011-03-05T01:08:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies mentions Morocco only four times (all in Century VI), namely at VI.45, VI.54, VI.80 and IV.91.

Here are the verses in question. Each is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For more literal, word-for-word translations, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010). You can explore the originals for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with this book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

VI.45. Original September 1557 text

Le gouverneur du regne bien scavant,

Ne consentir voulant au faict Royal:

Mellile classe par le contraire vent,

Le remettra à son plus desloyal.

The governor right learned of the realm

Shall not assent to th’ King’s command because

Mellila’s fleet against the wind shall helm,

And make him as disloyal as e’er he was.

Source: Unknown act of disloyalty by an erudite but suspect regional governor who is over-impressed by the approach of a fleet from Melilla in Morocco (Spanish from 1490 onwards).

VI.54. Original September 1557 text

Au poinct du jour au second chant du coq,

Ceulx de Tunes, de Fez, & de Bugie:

Par les Arabes captif le Roy Maroq,

L’an mil six cens & sept, de Liturgie.

At daybreak, when the cock shall call again,

From Tunis, Fez and Bougie they’ll appear.

Morocco’s King by Arabs shall be ta’en

From Lebanon, 1607 the year.

Source: Apparently the assassination of King Mohammed al-Mahdi by the Pasha of Algiers in 1557, following raids by the Turks on Fez and Bougie, simply projected (not for the first time!) fifty years into the future and assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s dire predictions of Arab invasion (see I.9, I.75

VI. 80. Original September 1557 text

De Fez le regne parviendra à ceulx d’Europe,

Feu leur cité, & lame trenchera:

Le grand d’Asie terre & mer à grand troupe,

Que bleux, pers, croix, à mort deschassera.

From Fez shall rulership to Europe spread,

Burning their cities, slashing with the sword.

By land and sea shall Asia’s kingly horde,

Blue-green, hound Christians till they drop down dead.

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s prediction of a mighty Arab invasion of Europe, in part via North Africa, assimilated to the contemporary Ottoman invasions: see I.9, I.75, II.24. The ‘blue-green’ reference seems to be to the Shi’ites of contemporary Persia.

VI. 91. Original September 1557 text

Du conducteur de la guerre navalle,

Rouge effrené severe horrible grippe,

Captif eschappé de l’aisné dans la basle:

Quant il naistra du grand un filz Agrippe.

The leader of the naval war shall skipper,

Frantic and red, a fierce and grim attack.

Captive shall ’scape the elder in a pack

When to the lord is born a son Agrippa.

Source: Unidentified. For line 3, compare VI.27.

Only two of these verses could conceivably be squared with any kind of revolt, and even then only with difficulty.

Iraq

2011-03-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies mentions Iraq as Mesopotamie, Babylon or Babel only eight times, namely at I.55, II.30, III.61, III.99, VII.22, VIII.70, VIII.96 and X.86.

I.55. Original 1555 text

Sous l’opposite climat Babylonique

Grande sera de sang effusion,

Que terre & mer, air, ciel sera inique:

Sectes, faim, regnes, pestes, confusion.

Over against where Babel used to stand

Great shall the bloodshed be, and full of evil

For air and sky, for sea and for the land:

For sects, starvation; kingdoms, plagues, upheaval.

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s predictions of the eventual Christian backlash against the Muslim Middle East: ‘Weep, alas! unhappy Babylon, what sad days await you! Like the ripened harvest, you shall be cut down on account of your iniquities. The kings of the four corners of the world shall advance against you . . .’ (Anonymous 16th-century prophecy): ‘There shall emerge from Gaul [interpolation by the 16th century French editor!] a race of Christians who shall make war on them and shall pierce them with the sword, shall take away their women captive and shall slaughter their children. In their turn, the sons of Ishmael shall encounter both sword and tribulation. And the Lord shall return to them the evil that they shall have done in sevenfold measure’ (Prophecy of Pseudo-Methodius): ‘The king of the Franks, Greeks and Romans, reclaiming for himself the whole empire of Christendom, shall devastate all the pagan islands and cities, shall overthrow the temples of idolatry, and shall summon all the pagans to baptism’ (Prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl).

II. 30. Original 1555 text

Un qui les dieux d’Annibal infernaulx

Fera renaistre, effrayeur des humains

Onq’ plus d’horreurs ne plus pire journaux

Qu’avint viendra par Babel aux Romains.

One who th’ infernal gods of Hannibal

Shall raise to life again shall men affright:

No greater horrors records shall recall

Than what shall Rome befall by Babel’s might.

Source: Once again the Mirabilis liber and its bloodthirsty predictions of an Arab invasion of Europe as symbolised by the former Roman Empire and the current Roman Catholic Church, assimilated to Livy’s lengthy descriptions, in his History of Rome, of the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s celebrated invasion of Italy via southern France of 218-203 BC. See I.9, I.15 . . . Because the historians of Livy’s day liked to explain events in terms of unchanging human nature, they are known to have shared the cyclic view of history that Nostradamus and his contemporaries espoused, and that made the French seer’s characteristic approach to prophecy, as demonstrated here, possible in the first place.

III. 61. Original 1555 text

La grande bande & secte crucigere

Se dressera en Mesopotamie:

Du proche fleuve compaignie legiere,

Que telle loy tiendra pour ennemie.

A mighty Christian sect, a major band,

Within Mesopotamia shall stand:

A lighter force beyond the flood nearby

Such tenets shall as hostile ones decry.

Source: Possibly William of Tyre’s Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, later translated as the 12th-13th century Chronique d’outremer, or Livre d’Erades or Livre du conquest, describing the foundation of the four Middle Eastern Crusader States (Edessa, Tripoli, Jerusalem and Antioch) after the success of the First Crusade and capture of Jerusalem in July 1099. Of the four, Edessa – by far the largest – had been extended southeastwards into Mesopotamia by 1118. In 1128 Zengi, the Atabeg of Mosul, took the town of Aleppo, on the other side of the Euphrates, and established it as a major centre for Islamic resistance that was to become a major threat to the Crusader states in the region.

III. 99. Original 1555 text

Aux champs herbeux d’Alein & du Varneigne,

Du mont Lebron proche de la Durance,

Camp de deux pars conflict sera sy aigre:

Mesopotamie deffallira en la France.

From Vernègues’ fields and Alleins’s pastures green

To Lubéron’s mount quite near to the Durance,

Bitter on both sides shall the fight have been -

But Babylon shall fail right here in France!

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s prediction of the final liberation of Europe from its expected future Islamic invaders, narrowed down to a purely local context involving local villages: see I.55.

VII.22. Original September 1557 text

Les citoyens de Mesopotamie,

Yrés encontre amis de Tarraconne:

Geux, ritz, banquetz, toute gent endormie

Vicaire au rosne, prins cité, ceux d’Ausone.

The people of Iraq shall fury heap

Upon the friends of Spanish Catalonia.

With games, rites, feasts, all of them are asleep:

Pope by the Rhône; Rome taken, and Ausonia.

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s forecast of a huge Middle Eastern invasion of Europe via Spain and Italy, assimilated to the Great Western Church Schism of the 14th century, when a series of Antipopes ruled from Avignon: see I.9, I.75, V.16. Compare the beginning of line 3 with II.16.

VIII.70. Original text of 1568 edition

Il entrera vilain, meschant, infame

Tyrannisant la Mesopotamie,

Tous amys fait d’adulterine d’ame.

Tertre horrible noir de phisonomie.

Wicked and vile, a man of ill repute

In Babylon his tyranny he’ll base.

With the Great Whore all then shall plead their suit.

A monster horrible, and black his face.

Source: The Mirabilis liber’s prophecy of the future Antichrist, here seen as swarthy, if not actually Moorish: see I.47, I.76, II.9.

VIII. 96. Original text of 1568 edition

La synagogue sterile sans nul fruit

Sera receu entre les infideles

De Babylon la fille du porsuit

Misere & triste luy trenchera les aisles.

The sterile, fruitless synagogue of yore

Shall ’midst the infidels be welcomèd

Till Babel’s daughter, chasing all before,

Shall, sad and wretched, clip its wings instead.

Source: The contemporary emigration of persecuted Jews from Spain and Italy to the more tolerant Ottoman – even though Muslim – dispensation of Suleiman the Magnificent in Turkey. One of them, named Don Joseph Nassi, who emigrated to Constantinople in 1553, even became a powerful figure there. However, Nostradamus expects them to be persecuted at the time of the Mirabilis liber’s predicted Arab invasion: see I.9, I.75, II.24.

X. 86. Original text of 1568 edition

Comme un gryphon viendra le roy d’Europe

Accompaigné de ceux d’Aquilon,

De rouges & blancz conduira grand troppe

Et yront contre le roy de Babilon.

The King of Europe, Gryphon-like indeed,

Accompanied by forces from the North,

Of reds and whites a mighty host shall lead

’Gainst Babylon’s great ruler boldly forth.

Source: The Third Crusade of 1189-92, led by the French King Philippe Auguste, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and their illustrious ally from the North, King Richard I of England who, in addition to the standard Crusaders’ uniform of red cross on white coverall, had his shield emblazoned with gryphons and finished up in virtual sole command. One of the titles of their chief adversary, the Arab Saladin, was indeed ‘King of Babylon’. All this is of course assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s by-now familiar theme of an eventual counter-invasion against the future Arab occupiers of Europe: see I.55.

As you can see, there is no suggestion in any of these of any Arab revolt.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States (including Bahrein) and Algeria

2011-03-01T03:43:00.001-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies doesn’t mention any of these countries at all – not least because many of them were not even founded until the twentieth century.

Yemen

2011-02-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

Before the Nostradamaniacs try to kid you that Nostradamus predicted the current upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East (as they will), on their usual principle that Nostradamus predicted whatever has just happened, please bear in mind that his book The Prophecies mentions Yemen (known to Nostradamus as ‘Sabaea’ – i.e. Sheba – and as ‘Arabia Felix’, though only for its role as the main supplier of frankincense) only once, namely at V .16.

Here is the verse in question. It is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For a more literal, word-for-word version, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010). You can explore the French original for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with the latter book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

V.16. Original September 1557 text

A son hault pris plus la lerme sabee,

D’humaine chair par mort en cendre mettre,

A l’isle Pharos par croisars perturbee,

Alors qu’a Rodes paroistra dur espectre.

The price of frankincense shall all but double

For embalming human flesh when it has died:

Crusaders shall the Isle of Paros trouble,

While there at Rhodes a grisly sight’s espied.

Source: The grisly Turkish assault mounted on Rhodes from 1522, assimilated to the Muslim assault on Europe via the Mediterranean islands predicted by the Mirabilis liber: see I.9, I.75, II.24. Frankincense was obtained exclusively from Ottoman-controlled Somalia and southern Arabia, though Nostradamus may be confusing it with myrrh.

Yet again, you will notice that there is not the slightest reference to any Arab revolt.

Tunisia

2011-02-27T04:25:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies mentions Tunisia only four times, namely at I.73, VI.53, VI.54 and X.56.

Here are the verses in question. Each is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For more literal, word-for-word translations, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010). You can explore the originals for yourself either in high resolution on the CD supplied with the latter book or in low resolution online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

I.73. Original 1555 text

France à cinq pars par neglect assailie

Tunys, Argiels esmeus par Persiens,

Leon, Seville, Barcelonne faillie

N’aura la classe par les Venitiens.

Negligent France on five fronts to assail

Shall Persia Tunis and Algiers incite.

Leon, Seville and Barcelona fail

To see the force that Venice them did plight.

Source: The verse appears to be based on the Mirabilis liber’s general predictions of a Muslim invasion of Europe via North Africa.

VI. 53. Original September 1557 text

Le grand Prelat Celtique à Roy suspect,

De nuict par cours sortira hors du regne:

Par duc fertille à son grand Roy, Bretaigne,

Bisance à Cipres & Tunes insuspect.

The Celtic prelate suspect to the King

Shall quit the realm by night all undetected,

Helped by a duke serving his British king.

Turkey by Cyprus, Tunis unsuspected.

Source: Possibly the verse is based on a dubious visit by the Bishop of Paris to the apostate Henry VIII in January 1534 during the build-up to the capture of Tunis seven months later by the pirate Barbarossa on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan, possibly assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s prediction of a Middle Eastern invasion of Europe: see I.9, I.75, II.24.

VI. 54. Original September 1557 text

Au poinct du jour au second chant du coq,

Ceulx de Tunes, de Fez, & de Bugie:

Par les Arabes captif le Roy Maroq,

L’an mil six cens & sept, de Liturgie.

At daybreak, when the cock shall call again,

From Tunis, Fez and Bougie they’ll appear.

Morocco’s King by Arabs shall be ta’en

From Lebanon, 1607 the year.

Source: The verse is apparently based on the assassination of King Mohammed al-Mahdi by the Pasha of Algiers in 1557, following raids by the Turks on Fez and Bougie, simply projected (not for the first time!) fifty years into the future and assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s dire predictions of Arab invasion (see I.9, I.75).

X. 56. Original text of 1568 edition

Prelat royal son baissant trop tiré,

Grand fleux de sang sortira par sa bouche,

Le regne Anglicque par regne respiré,

Long temps mort vif en Tunys comme souche.

The royal prelate too deep his bow performing,

Shall a great gush of blood surge from his throat.

. The English realm revived by Queen reforming,

Long time, log-like, ’twixt death and life he’ll float.

Source: The verse may be based on an unidentified mishap to an unknown bishop, with a line thrown in about the reign of Queen Mary of England and her (to Nostradamus) welcome efforts to revive Roman Catholicism in England.

Once again, you will note that not one of these refers to any Arab revolt.

EGYPT

2011-02-26T04:16:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's book The Prophecies mentions Egypt only five times, namely at I.40, II.86, III.77, V.25 and X.79. The term la piramide at IV.27 is merely the local name of a rock pinnacle in the middle (presumably la pierre en mi) of the ancient stone-quarry just to the south of Nostradamus’s birthplace at St-Rémy-de-Provence (as the verse itself makes clear), and not to anything in Egypt.

I.40. Original 1555 text

La trombe faulse dissimulant folie

Fera Bisance un changement de loys:

Hystra d’Egypte qui veult que l’on deslie

Edict changeant monnoyes & aloys.

False trumpetings that madness’ face disguise

In Istanbul a changed regime shall cause.

From Egypt a reformer shall arise:

On money and alloys he’ll make new laws.

Source: The verse is evidently based on the edicts on the reform of the currency issued by Louis IX in 1263, following his return from captivity in Egypt between 1250 and 1254.

II.86. Original 1555 text

Naufraige a classe pres d’onde Hadriatique:

La terre esmeuë sus l’air en terre mis:

Egypte tremble augment Mahommetique

L’Herault soy rendre à crier est commis.

A fleet is wrecked near th’ Adriatic sea,

Lifted by earthquake, cast upon the land.

Egypt shall quake the Muslim flag to see:

A herald sent, surrender in his hand.

Source: The verse seems to refer back to an unidentified historical tsunami incident, assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s predictions of a future Muslim invasion.

III. 77. Original 1555 text

Le tiers climat soubz Aries comprins

L’an mil sept cens vingt & sept en Octobre,

Le roy de Perse par ceux d’Egypte prins:

Conflict, mort, pte: à la croix grand opprobre.

In climate third, subject to Aries placed,

October seventeen hundred, seven and twenty,

Is Persia’s king by Egypt ta’en, ’midst plenty

Of war, death, and destruction: cross disgraced.

Source: The verse seems to represent an attempted – and, in the event, failed –astrological prediction, somewhat confusedly based, according to Prévost, on the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius’s attack on Persia in the year 627.

V. 25. Original September 1557 text

Le prince Arabe, Mars, Sol, Venus, Lyon,

Regne d’Eglise par mer succombera:

Devers la Perse bien pres d’un million,

Bisance, Egipte ver. serp. invadera.

Mars, Venus, sun in Leo: to Arab Khan

Shall Christendom at length by sea succumb.

Some million men shall move towards Iran:

To Nile and Istanbul coiled snake shall come.

Source: The verse is evidently based on then-recent Ottoman conquests of the Middle East and south-eastern Europe, coupled with the Mirabilis liber’s description of a coming invasion of Europe by Arab forces from the Middle East via the Mediterranean (see I.9, I.75, II.24) ), and possibly informed by Virgil’s description, in his Aeneid (XI.753), of a serpent (serpens) that twists and turns (versat) as it is snatched up by an eagle:

Yet doth the wounded serpent twist its coils

Abundantly, bristling with scales erect,

And hissing as it rears its angry head.

X. 79. Original text of 1568 edition

Les vieux chemins seront tous embelys,

Lon passera à Memphis somentrée,

Le grand Mercure d’Hercules fleur de lys

Faisant trembler terre, mer & contree.

Old roads with new embellishments they’ll fit:

As though to ancient Memphis they shall go,

As Gallic Hercules’ mercurial writ

Earth, sea and all the land shall quaking know.

Source: The verse looks forward to the triumphant liberation of Arab-occupied Europe and re-establishment of classical civilisation under a future Grand Monarque (see I.4, I.55, I.92), as promised by the Mirabilis liber (see I.55).

You will note that not one of these refers to any Arab revolt.

LIBYA

2011-02-25T02:17:00.000-08:00

Nostradamus's Prophecies mention Libya only five times, namely at I.9, III.27, IV.4, V.13 and V.14. Moreover, after the original Roman model, he tends to use the name to refer to North Africa in general rather than to Libya in particular, which didn't exist as a country until the 1930s.

Here are the verses in question. Each is followed by my own published verse-translation of it, taken from my Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies (O Books, 2003). For more literal, word-for-word translations, see my Nostradamus, Bibliomancer (Career Press, 2010). You can explore the originals for yourself online at http://www.propheties.it/bibliotheque/index.html.

I.9 Original 1555 text

De l’Orient viendra le cueur Punique,

Facher Hadrie & les hoirs Romulides,

Acompaigne de la classe Libycque,

Trembler Mellites: et proches isles vuides.

From th’ East shall Afric hearts a passage beat

To harass Venice, Rome itself to try,

Accompanied by all the Libyan fleet:

Malta shall quake; emptied each isle nearby.

Sources The verse is evidently based on (a) The Mirabilis liber’s vision of a coming Arab invasion of Europe via the Mediterranean islands and (b) Livy’s account of the Carthaginian (‘Punic’) general Hannibal’s devastating invasion of Italy in 218-6 BC. It clearly anticipates an Arab invasion of Europe, not an Arab revolt.

III.27 Original 1555 text

Prince Libyque puissant en Occident

Francois d’Arabe viendra tant enflammer:

Scavans aux letres fera condescendent,

La langue Arabe en Francois translater.

A Libyan leader puissant in the West

The French for Arabic shall so impassion

That certain scholars shall at his behest

French from the Arabic translate after their fashion.

Source: The verse I evidently based on King François I’s inauguration of a chair of Arabic at the Collège de France in the 1540s, though the ‘Libyan prince’ is unidentified. There is no suggestion of an Arab revolt.

IV.4 Original 1555 text

L’impotent prince faché, plainctz & quereles.

De rapts & pilles par coqz & par libyques:

Grand est par terre, par mer infinies voiles,

Seure Italie sera chassant Celtiques.

The powerless prince shall fret while all complain

Of French and Afric troops that sack and loot.

On land great hosts; ships countless ply the main;

Italy safe, the French in hot pursuit.

Source: The verse evidently refers back to the frustrations of the Emperor Charles V when, in 1536, the French and the Turks allied to attack his possessions in Italy and Savoy. Once again there is no suggestion of an Arab revolt.

V.13 Original September 1557 text

Par grand fureur le roy Romain Belgique,

Vexer vouldra par phalange barbare:

Fureur grinsseant chassera gent lybique,

Despuis Pannons jusques Hercules la hare.

The Roman Belgian king in fury black

Shall wish to harry the Barbarian host:

With fury grim he’ll chase the Libyans back

From Hungary to stern Gibraltar’s coast.

Source: The verse is evidently based on the then-recent military campaigns of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who was born at Gent in East Flanders) to repulse the invading Ottomans, assimilated to the Mirabilis liber’s prophecy of the eventual liberation of Europe from its future Arab invaders. Once again, then, there is no suggestion of an Arab revolt.

V.14 Original September 1557 text

Saturne & Mars en leo Espaigne captifve,

Par chef lybique au conflict attrapé:

Proche de Malthe, Heredde prinse vive,

Et Romain sceptre sera par coq frappé.

Saturn and Mars in Leo, held in Spain,

Caught by an Afric leader in a fight,

Near Marta shall Heredia live be ta’en

When Cock shall strike the Roman ruler's might.

Source: The verse is evidently based on the temporary imprisonment in Spain in 1535 of Don Pedro de Heredia, Governor of Santa Marta in Colombia, for alleged embezzlement of Indian property. Yet again there is no suggestion of an Arab revolt.