Book 4
1 People of boastful Asia and of Europe,
2 Hear how much, all too true, I am about,
3 Through a mouth many-toned, from my great hall
4 To prophesy; no oracle am I
5 Of lying Phœbus, whom vain men called god,
6 And further falsified by calling seer;
7 But of the mighty God, whom hands of men
8 Formed not like speechless idols carved of stone.
9 For he has not for his abode a stone
10 Most dumb and toothless to a temple drawn,
11 Of mortals a dishonor very sore;
12 For he may not be seen from earth nor measured
13 By mortal eyes, nor formed by mortal hand;
14 He, looking down at once on all, is seen
15 Himself by no one; his are murky night,
16 And day, and sun, and stars, and moon, and seas
17 With fish, and land, and rivers, and the mouth
18 Of springs perennial, creatures meant for life,
19 And rains at once producing fruit of field
20 And tree and vine and oil. This God a whip
21 Struck through my heart within to make me tell
22 Truly to men what things have now befallen
23 And how much shall befall them yet again
24 From the first generation to the eleventh;
25 For he himself by bringing them to pass
26 Will prove all things. But do thou in all things,
27 O people, to the Sibyl give an ear,
28 Who pours from hallowed mouth a truthful voice.
29 Blessed of men shall they be on the earth
30 As many as shall love the mighty God,
31 Offering him praise before they drink and eat;
32 Trusting in piety. When they behold
33 Temples and altars, figures of dumb stones,
34 [Stone images and statues made with hands]
35 Polluted with the blood of living things
36 And sacrifices of four-footed beasts,
37 They will reject them all; and they will look
38 To the great glory of one God and not
39 Commit presumptuous murder nor dispose
40 Of stolen gain, which things most horrid are;
41 Nor shameful longing for another’s bed
42 Have they, nor vile and hateful lust of males.
43 Their manner, piety, and character
44 Shall other men, that love a shameless life,
45 Not ever imitate; but, mocking them
46 With jest and joke like babes in senselessness,
47 They’ll falsely charge to them as many deeds
48 Blameful and wicked as they do themselves.
49 For slow is the whole race of human kind
50 To believe. But when judgment of the world
51 And mortals comes, which God himself shall bring
52 Judging at once the impious and the pious,
53 Then indeed shall he send the ungodly back
54 To lower darkness [and then they shall know
55 How much impiety they wrought]; but the pious
56 Shall still remain upon the fruitful land,
57 God giving to them breath and life and grace.
58 But these things all in the tenth generation
59 Shall come to pass; and now what things shall be
60 From the first generation, those I’ll tell.
61 First over all mortals shall Assyrians rule,
62 And for six generations hold the power
63 Of the world, from the time the God of heaven
64 Being wroth against the cities and all men
65 Sea with a bursting deluge covered earth.
66 Them shall the Medes o’erpower, but on the throne
67 For two generations only shall exult;
68 In which times these events shall come to pass:
69 Dark night shall come at the mid hour of day;
70 And from the heaven the stars and circling moon
71 Shall disappear; and earth in tumult shaken
72 By a great earthquake shall throw many cities
73 And works of men headlong; and from the deep
74 Then shall peer out the islands of the sea.
75 But when the great Euphrates shall with blood
76 Be surging, then shall there be also set
77 Between the Medes and Persians dreadful strife
78 In battle; and the Medes shall fall and fly
79 ‘Neath Persian spears beyond the mighty water
80 Of Tigris. And the Persian power shall be
81 Greatest in all the world, and they shall have
82 One generation of most prosperous rule.
83 And there shall be as many evil deeds.
84 As men shall wish away—the din of war,
85 And murders, and disputes, and banishments,
86 And overthrow of towers and waste of cities,
87 When Hellas very glorious shall sail
88 Over broad Hellespont, and shall convey
89 To Phrygia sorrow and to Asia doom.
90 And unto Egypt, land of many furrows,
91 Shall sorry famine come, and barrenness
92 Shall during twenty circling years prevail,
93 What time the Nile, corn-nourisher, shall hide
94 His dark wave somewhere underneath the earth.
95 And there shall come from Asia a great king
96 Bearing a spear, with ships innumerable,
97 And he shall walk the wet paths of the deep,
98 And shall sail after he has cut the mount
99 Of lofty summit; him a fugitive
100 From battle fearful Asia shall receive.
101 And Sicily the wretched shall a stream
102 Of powerful fire set all aflame while Etna
103 Her flame disgorges; and in the deep chasm
104 Down shall the mighty city Croton fall.
105 And strife shall be in Hellas; they shall rage
106 Against each other, cast down many cities,
107 And fighting make an end of many men;
108 But equally balanced is the strife with both.
109 But, when the race of mortal men shall come
110 To the tenth generation, also then
111 Upon the Persians shall a servile yoke
112 And terror be. But when the Macedonians
113 Shall boast the scepter there shall be for Thebes
114 An evil conquest from behind, and Carians
115 Shall dwell in Tyre, and Tyrians be destroyed.
116 And Babylon, great to see but small to fight,
117 Shall stand with walls that were in vain hopes built.
118 In Bactria Macedonians shall dwell;
119 But those from Susa and from Bactria
120 Shall all into the land of Hellas flee.
121 It shall take place among those yet to be,
122 When silver-eddying Pyramus his banks.
123 O’erpouring to the sacred isle shall come.
124 And Cibyra shall fall and Cyzicus,
125 When, earth being shaken by earthquakes, cities fall.
126 And sand shall hide all Samos under banks.
127 And Delos visible no more, but things
128 Of Delos shall all be invisible.
129 And to Rhodes shall come evil last, but greatest.
130 The Macedonian power shall not abide;
131 But from the west a great Italian war
132 Shall flourish, under which the world shall bear
133 A servile yoke and the Italians serve.
134 And thou, O wretched Corinth, thou shalt look
135 Sometime upon thy conquest. And thy tower,
136 O Carthage, shall press lowly on the ground.
137 Wretched Laodicea, thee sometime
138 Shall earthquake lay low, casting headlong down,
139 But then, a city firmly set, again
140 Shalt stand. O Lycian Myra beautiful,
141 Thee never shall the agitated earth
142 Set fast; but falling headlong down on earth
143 Shalt thon, in manner like an alien, pray
144 To flee away into another land,
145 When sometime the dark water of the sea
146 With thunders and earthquakes shall stop the din
147 Of Patara for its impieties.
148 Also for thee, Armenia, there remains
149 A slavish fate; and there shall also come
150 To Solyma an evil blast of war
151 From Italy, and God’s great temple spoil.
152 But when these, trusting folly, shall cast off.
153 Their piety and murders consummate
154 Around the temple, then from Italy
155 A mighty king shall like a runaway slave
156 Flee over the Euphrates’ stream unseen,
157 Unknown, who shall some time dare loathsome guilt
158 Of matricide, and many other things,
159 Having confidence in his most wicked hands.
160 And many for the throne shall stain with blood
161 Rome’s soil while he flees over Parthian land.
162 And out of Syria shall come Rome’s foremost man,
163 Who having burned the temple of Solyma,
164 And having slaughtered many of the Jews,
165 Shall bring destruction on their great broad land.
166 And then too shall an earthquake overthrow
167 Both Salamis and Paphos, when dark water
168 Shall dash o’er Cyprus washed by many a wave.
169 But when from deep cleft of Italian land
170 Fire shall come flashing forth in the broad heaven,
171 And many cities burn and men destroy,
172 And much black ashes shall fill the great sky,
173 And small drops like red earth shall fall from heaven,
174 Then know the anger of the God of heaven,
175 For that they without reason shall destroy
176 The nation of the pious. And then strife
177 Awakened of war shall come to the West,
178 Shall also come the fugitive of Rome,
179 Bearing a great spear, having marched across
180 Euphrates with his many myriads.
181 O wretched Antioch, they shall call thee
182 No more a city when around their spears
183 Because of thine own follies thou shalt fall.
184 And then on Scyros shall a pestilence
185 And dreadful battle-din destruction bring,
186 Alas, alas! O wretched Cyprus, thee
187 Shall a broad wave of the sea cover, thee
188 Tossed on high by the whirling stormy winds.
189 And into Asia there shall come great wealth,
190 Which Rome herself once, plundering, put away
191 In her luxurious homes; and twice as much
192 And more shall she to Asia render back,
193 And then there shall be an excess of war.
194 And Carian cities by Meander’s waters,
195 Girded with towers and very beautiful,
196 Shall by a bitter famine be destroyed,
197 When the Meander his dark water hides.
198 But when piety shall perish from mankind,
199 And faith and right be hidden in the world,
200 .mw-parser-output .nowrap,.mw-parser-output .nowrap a:before,.mw-parser-output .nowrap .selflink:before{white-space:nowrap}… Fickle … and in unhallowed boldness
201 Living shall practice wanton violence,
202 And reckless evil deeds, and of the pious
203 No one shall make account, but even them all
204 From thoughtlessness they utterly destroy
205 In childish folly, in their violence
206 Exulting and in blood holding their hands;
207 Then know thou that God is no longer mild,
208 But gnashing with fury and destroying all
209 The race of men by conflagration great.
210 Ah! miserable mortals, change these things,
211 Nor lead the mighty God to wrath extreme;
212 But giving up your swords and pointed knives,
213 And homicides and wanton violence,
214 Wash your whole body in perennial streams,
215 And lifting up your hands to heaven seek pardon
216 For former deeds and expiate with praise
217 Bitter impiety; and God will give
218 Repentance; he will not destroy; and wrath
219 Will he again restrain, if in your hearts
220 Ye all will practice honored piety.
221 But if, ill-disposed, ye obey me not,
222 But with a fondness for strange lack of sense
223 Receive all these things with an evil ear,
224 There shall be over all the world a fire
225 And greatest omen with sword and with trump
226 At sunrise; the whole world shall hear the roar
227 And mighty sound. And he shall burn all earth,
228 And destroy the whole race of men, and all
229 The cities and the rivers and the sea;
230 All things he’ll burn, and it shall be black dust.
231 But when now all things shall have been reduced
232 To dust and ashes, and God shall have calmed
233 The fire unspeakable which he lit up,
234 The bones and ashes of men God himself
235 Again will fashion, and he will again
236 Raise mortals up, even as they were before.
237 And then shall be the judgment, at which God
238 Himself as judge shall judge the world again;
239 And all who sinned with impious hearts, even them
240 Shall he again hide under mounds of earth
241 [Dark Tartarus and Stygian Gehenna].
242 But all who shall be pious shall again
243 Live on the earth [and (shall inherit there)
244 The great immortal God’s unwasting bliss,]
245 God giving spirit life and joy to them
246 [The pious; and they all shall see themselves.
247 Beholding the sun’s sweet and cheering light.
248 O happy on the earth shall be that man].