Book 5
1 Now come, hearken unto the woful chronicle of the sons of Latium.
2 Verily first of all after the decease of the kings
3 of Egypt, all of whom a like measure of earth bore down;
4 and after the citizen of Pella, under whom the whole
5 East had been subdued and the West with its stores of wealth,
6 whom Babylon disillusioned and handed over, a corpse, to Philip,
7 famed by no true report a son of Zeus, of Ammon:
8 and after the man of the family and blood of Assaracus,
9 who came from Troy, who clave the onrushing fire;
10 and after many kings and warlike wights,
11 and after infants, children of the beast who preys on sheep,
12 there shall be a king first of all, who shall sum up twice ten
13 with his initial letter: and in wars he shall conquer for long.
14 He shall have his first initial of ten: and so after him
15 shall reign one who has the first of letters.
16 Before him Thrace shall cower, and Sicily, and, later, Memphis:
17 Memphis hurled headlong by the wickedness of its rulers
18 and of an untamable woman who fell upon the wave.
19 And he shall ordain laws for the people and bring all things under his sway.
20 After a long time he shall hand over the empire to another,
21 who shall have his first letter of the number of three hundred,
22 and a river’s own name, who shall also reign over the Persians
23 and Babylon: then he shall subdue the Medes with his spear.
24 Then one shall reign who has the letter of the number three.
25 The next king who shall reign shall have twice ten for his first letter:
26 and he shall go to Ocean’s farthest
27 water, †directing his ebb against the Ausonians†.
28 Then he shall be sovereign who has the letter of fifty,
29 a direful serpent causing grievous war, who shall one day put forth his hands
30 on his own family and slay them, and shall throw all into confusion,
31 as athlete, charioteer, murderer, and doer of a thousand extravagant acts.
32 He shall pierce, too, the hill between two seas, and besprinkle it with blood;
33 Yea, even when he disappears, he shall be malignant. Then he shall return,
34 making himself equal to God: but God shall convince him that he is not.
35 Three kings after him shall perish at each other’s hands.
36 Then there shall come a great destroyer of godly men
37 who displays the letter of seventy.
38 His son, who has the initial of three hundred, shall overcome him
39 and take away his power: and after him there shall be a sovereign
40 of the letter of four, a cursed man. And next
41 a reverend man of the number of fifty. And after him
42 one whose initial signifies three hundred,
43 a Celtic mountaineer; and he, hot-footed for Eastern war,
44 shall not escape ignoble fate, but shall succumb. A foreign dust shall hide his corpse,
45 even one that has the name of the Nemean flower. And after him another shall reign,
46 a silver-helmed man: he shall have the name of a sea.
47 He shall be a most excellent man and shall understand everything.
48 And in thy time, most excellent, most noble, dark-haired prince,
49 and in the time of thy scions, all these days shall come.
50 After him three shall reign, but the third shall rule late in life.
51 Thrice wretched I, I am wearied to conceive the message of evil in my heart,
52 I the familiar friend of Isis, and the inspired strain of oracles.
53 First of all around the steps of thy lamented temple,
54 frenzied priestesses shall rush, and thou shalt be in evil hands
55 on that day when the Nile passes over
56 the whole land of Egypt up to sixteen cubits,
57 so as to flood the whole land and drench it with its streams.
58 And the grace of the land shall subside and the glory of its face.
59 Memphis, thou shalt mourn more than all for Egypt.
60 For thou, who before wast the mighty mistress of earth, shalt become
61 miserable, so that even He whose delight is in the thunder shall shout
62 from heaven with a loud voice: O Memphis, mighty in strength,
63 thou who of old didst boast so loudly to miserable men,
64 shalt mourn wretched and ill-starred,
65 so that the eternal immortal God will notice thee in the clouds.
66 Where is thy spirit that has been so masterful among men?
67 Forasmuch as thou hast spent thy fury upon my divinely anointed servants,
68 and hast launched forth evil upon men that are good,
69 in return for such things thou shalt have such a nurse for thy recompense.
70 Thou shalt have no longer any right †openly† among the blessed.
71 Thou hast fallen from the stars: thou shalt not ascend to heaven.
72 These things God bade me tell forth to Egypt
73 in the last time when men shall be wholly evil.
74 But wicked men exhaust wickedness awaiting
75 the wrath of the immortal, loud-thundering God of heaven,
76 and worshipping stones in place of God, and beasts,
77 and fearing a motley crowd of deities, which have no speech,
78 no understanding and no hearing, such things as it is a shame for me even to mention,
79 each several form of idols which owe their being to the hands of mortal men.
80 And from their own labours and miserable devices
81 men have taken to themselves gods of wood and stone,
82 of brass and gold and silver too, vain gods,
83 lifeless and dumb and smelted in the fire,
84 have they made, putting their trust in vain in such as these.
85 †Thmouis and Xouis are in tribulation. Abydos laments,†
86 and (the cities) of Heracles, Zeus and Hermes.
87 And thee Alexandria, famous nurse of cities,
88 war shall not leave, nor famine, but thou shalt pay the penalty
89 of thy haughtiness and all thy former deeds.
90 Long ages shalt thou be in silence and the day of return thou shalt not see.
91 And no more shall the Nile flow for thee with its boon of delicious drink.
92 For the Persian shall come upon thy field like hail
93 and shall destroy thy land and thy men of evil arts,
94 with blood and corpses, †beside thy glorious altars†;
95 a people of uncouth mind, stalwart, red with blood, of senseless rage,
96 in full force like the sand to hasten thy doom.
97 And then, O thou rich with the wealth of cities, thou shalt be rich with distress.
98 All Asia shall mourn because of those gifts of thine from which
99 she joyed to crown her head, now falling upon earth.
100 And he to whose lot fell the Persians’ land shall war thee down,
101 and killing man by man shall crush out thy whole life,
102 so that but a third part shall remain to wretched men.
103 And he shall leap on thee with light spring from the West,
104 blockading thy whole land and laying it all in waste.
105 But when he reaches his zenith of power, and his boldness knows no shame,
106 he shall come fain even to sack the city of the blessed.
107 And then a king sent from God against him
108 shall destroy all the mighty kings and the best of the men.
109 And so shall the judgement come from the Immortal upon men.
110 Woe unto thee, my craven heart, why dost thou provoke me
111 to declare these things unto Egypt, even the grievous partition of sovereignty?
112 Go to the East, to the senseless Persian tribes, and signify to them the present and that which is to be.
113 The stream of the river Euphrates shall bring on a flood
114 and it shall destroy Persians and Iberians and Babylonians,
115 and Massagetae lovers of war and trusting in bows.
116 The whole of Asia shall blaze with flames of fire as far as the islands.
117 Pergamus, of old so venerable, shall perish as a cluster of grapes,
118 and Pitane shall appear among men as a mass of ruins.
119 The whole of Lesbos shall sink into the deep abyss to perish.
120 Smyrna shall one day mourn rolled down the cliffs;
121 she that of old was revered and renowned shall perish.
122 The Bithynians shall mourn their land reduced to ashes,
123 and great Syria and Phoenice with its multitude of peoples.
124 Woe to thee, Lycia, for all the evils that the sea is devising against thee,
125 invading of its own accord thy woebegone land,
126 so as to flood with evil earthquake and bitter streams
127 the myrrhless myrrh-breathing land of Lycia.
128 Phrygia, too, shall have grievous wrath on account of the infatuation
129 whereby Rhea the (mother) of Zeus came and stayed there.
130 The sea shall destroy the family of the Tauri and their barbarian folk,
131 and a devourer shall slay the Lapithae throughout their land†.
132 The deep-eddying river shall destroy the Thessalian land,
133 even Peneius with its deep stream chasing mortals from the land.
134 Poets shall sing well-a-day for thrice-wretched Hellas, when one from Italy shall pierce the neck of the isthmus, even the mighty king of mighty Rome, a godlike man,
135 to whom, they say, Zeus himself gave birth and our lady Hera.
136 Who courting applause with honied strains uttered with melodious voice
137 shall destroy many together with his ill-starred mother.
138 Then shall flee from Babylon a king fearful and shameless
139 whom all mortals and all the best men loathe.
140 For he destroyed many and laid his hands on the womb
141 and sinned against wives and was born of abominable parentage.
142 He shall come to the Medes and to the kings of the Persians,
143 the first whom he desired and to whom he added glory,
144 making his lair with these evil men against the true people.
145 He seized the temple built by God, and burnt the citizens and the people who went up to it, whom I have justly sung.
146 For when he died the whole of creation was shaken
147 and kings perished, and those among whom the empire remained
148 destroyed the great city and the righteous people.
149 But when after the fourth year a great star shines,
150 which by itself shall destroy the (whole) land, †because of the honour
151 which they first paid to Poseidon god of the sea†,
152 then shall come a great star from heaven into the divine sea,
153 and shall burn up the deep sea and Babylon itself,
154 and the land of Italy on whose account
155 many faithful saints of the Hebrews have perished, and the true people.
156 Thou shalt be afflicted with evil among evil men,
157 but thou shalt remain utterly desolate for whole ages hereafter, …
158 hating thy soil because thou didst love magic.
159 Adulteries are with thee and unlawful intercourse with boys,
160 effeminate and unjust, thou wicked city, most ill-starred of all.
161 Woe unto thee all unclean city of Latin land,
162 frenzied and †poison-loving†, in widowhood shalt thou sit beside thy banks,
163 and river Tiber shall mourn for thee, his wife,
164 that hadst a bloodthirsty heart and a godless mind.
165 Didst thou not know what God can do and what are his designs?
166 But thou hast said, I am unique, and none shall bring ruin on me.
167 But now God whose Being is for ever shall destroy thee and all of thine,
168 and there shall be no token of thee in that land,
169 as of old when the Mighty God found for thee thine honour.
170 Remain. O lawless one, unique, and, wedded unto flaming fire,
171 make thine home in the nether region of Hades where laws are not.
172 But now once more, Egypt, I bemoan thy doom.
173 Memphis, thou shalt be in the van of troubles, †smitten in thine ankles†.
174 The very pyramids in thee shall utter a speechless voice.
175 Python, thou that of old wast justly called the double city,
176 be thou silent for ages that thou mayst cease from thy wickedness.
177 Insolence, storehouse of evil woes, frenzied with much lamentation,
178 direful sufferer, full of tears, thou shalt remain a widow for ever.
179 For many a year thou wast the sole sovereign of the world.
180 But when Barca puts on the white kilt
181 over soiled clothes, may I not live or be born.
182 O Thebes, where is thy great strength? a savage man
183 shall utterly destroy thy people. And thou, taking thy sombre garments
184 shalt mourn, poor wretch, alone, and shalt make full amends
185 for all that thou didst before in the shamelessness of thine heart.
186 And they shall make grievous lament because of their lawless deeds.
187 Syene an Ethiopian hero shall destroy.
188 Teuchira the dark-skinned Indians shall forcibly occupy.
189 Pentapolis, thou shalt mourn: †a man of mighty strength shall destroy thee.†
190 O Libya, steeped in tears, who shall tell forth thy dooms?
191 And what mortal. Cyrene, shall weep piteous tears for thee?
192 Thou shalt not cease thy lament to the time of thine hateful destruction.
193 Among the Britains and the Gauls rich in gold
194 the ocean shall roar filled with streams of blood:
195 forasmuch as they too committed wickedness against the children of God
196 †when the red king brought against the Sidonians
197 a great horde of Gauls out of Syria†. And he shall slay even thee,
198 O Ravenna, and shall rule over thee with bloodshed.
199 Ye Indians, be not overbold, and ye stout-hearted Ethiopians.
200 For when the circle of the arched Axis, Capricorn
201 and Taurus among the Twins revolve round mid heaven,
202 and Virgo is coming forth, and the sun
203 reigns fixing his fire-flashing belt about his brow:
204 then there shall be a great celestial conflagration on the earth,
205 and in the battle of the stars a new creation shall come forth, so that
206 the whole land of the Ethiopians shall perish with fire and moanings.
207 Do thou too, Corinth, bemoan the piteous destruction that is in thee.
208 For when with their weft of twisted thread the three sister-Fates
209 bring back him that fled by guile to the bank of the Isthmus
210 in mid-air that all may see him,
211 who once pierced the rock with ductile brass,
212 then he shall destroy thy land and waste it, as it was determined before.
213 For to him God hath given strength to do
214 such things as none of all the former kings have done.
215 For first of all cutting off with a mighty blow the roots from three heads,
216 he shall give them to his mighty comrades to devour
217 so that they shall eat the flesh of the parents of the unholy king.
218 For for all men blood and horrors are in store
219 because of the great city and the righteous people,
220 brought safe through all, whom Providence exalted.
221 O thou unsettled and of evil counsel, beset with evil fate,
222 source of trouble and its great end unto men
223 when creation is vexed and again saved by the Fates,
224 O violence, fountainhead of evils and great bane unto men,
225 who of mortals hath desired thee, who within him hath not been vexed?
226 By thee a king cast down has lost his august life.
227 Thou hast ordered all amiss and hast brought on all the flood-tide of evil,
228 and through thee the fair plains of the earth have been altered.
229 Throw out these seeds of strife (perhaps they are thy last) for our contention.
230 How and what dost thou speak? I will persuade thee, yea, even if I blame thee I say it.
231 There was once among men the bright sun-ray, when the beam of the prophets was shed forth in concord.
232 A tongue distilling a fair honied drink to all mortals
233 came forth and waxed greater, and reared its gentle crop for all.
234 Therefore, O thou of cramped counsel, fountain-head of the greatest of evils,
235 the hooked knife and mourning shall come on that day.
236 O thou source of trouble and its great end unto men,
237 when creation is vexed and again saved by the Fates,
238 listen to my bitter speech of evil sound, thou bane unto men.
239 But when the Persian land shall be quit of war
240 and of pestilence and lamentation, then there shall be on that day
241 the godlike heavenly race of the blessed Jews,
242 who dwell around the city of God at the centre of earth.
243 Building a great ring-wall as far as Joppa
244 they are exalted on high up to the darkling clouds.
245 No more shall the trumpet hiss forth the blast of war’s turmoil,
246 nor shall they perish any more by the fanatic hands of their foes.
247 But they shall set up trophies around in an age innocent of harm.
248 Then there shall come from the sky a certain exalted man,
249 whose hands they nailed upon the fruitful tree,
250 the noblest of the Hebrews, who shall one day cause the sun to stand still,
251 when he cries with fair speech and pure lips.
252 Let thy spirit within thy breast no longer be vexed, thou blessed one,
253 child of God, excellent in wealth, only longed-for blossom,
254 pleasant light, august offshoot, longed-for branch,
255 well-favoured Judaea, fair city, inspired in hymns.
256 No longer shall the Greeks’ unclean foot run riot in thy land,
257 for they shall have within their breasts a mind that conforms to thy laws.
258 But thy noble sons shall encircle thee with honour,
259 and with holy music they shall attend thy table,
260 with divers kinds of sacrifices and prayers to the honour of God.
261 All those righteous men who from short-lived affliction have endured troubles,
262 shall have a more ample and well-favoured rope of life .
263 But the evil men who trim to the breeze a lawless tongue
264 shall cease to speak one against another,
265 and they shall hide themselves †until the world pass away†.
266 And then shall come from the clouds a rain of flaming fire.
267 No longer shall men gather in the blithe corn-blade from the earth.
268 All shall remain unsown and unploughed, until mortal men take note of
269 God, the Chief of all, the Immortal and Eternal,
270 and no longer pay homage to mortal things,
271 nor dogs and vultures, which Egypt has taught
272 to reverence with vain mouths and foolish lips.
273 But the holy land of the godly alone shall bear all these things.
274 An ambrosial stream distilling honey and milk shall flow from rock and fountain for all the righteous.
275 For they fixed their hope on the one God, the Father who alone is excellent,
276 and they held fast to great piety and faith.
277 But why, O why, does my wise mind lay this burden on me?
278 Now it is thou, O wretched Asia, that I piteously lament, and the race of the Ionians, Carians, and Lydians rich in gold.
279 Woe to thee, Sardis: and to thee, lovely Trallis.
280 Woe to thee, Laodicea, fair city, how shall ye perish
281 destroyed by earthquakes and reduced to dust.
282 To dusky Asia and (the race) of the Lydians rich in gold …
283 The shrine of Artemis fashioned (by the citizens) of Ephesus
284 shall one day by yawnings and quakings of the earth sink into the divine sea
285 headlong, even as tempests overwhelm ships.
286 Ephesus shall lament prostrate and weeping by her shores,
287 and seeking for her temple which is no longer inhabited.
288 And then in wrath the Immortal God who dwells in heaven
289 shall hurl from the sky a fiery meteor down on the unholy head.
290 And instead of winter there shall be summer on that day,
291 and then indeed shall be autumn’s end to mortal men.
292 For He who thunders from on high shall utterly destroy all the shameless men,
293 with thunderings and lightnings and flaming thunderbolts,
294 on those who are his enemies, and he shall destroy them as ungodly
295 so that dead bodies shall remain on the earth more numerous than the sand.
296 Smyrna too shall come bemoaning her minstrel
297 to the gates of Ephesus, and she shall perish more thoroughly.
298 And Cyme, the foolish, with her streams inspired of God,
299 hurled down by the hands of godless men, unjust and lawless,
300 shall not so much as put forth a branch toward heaven,
301 but shall remain dead by its swelling streams.
302 And then they shall groan together awaiting an evil doom.
303 They shall know when they have a token wherefore they have laboured,
304 that stubborn folk and shameless race of the Cymaeans.
305 Then when they shall bemoan their wicked land reduced to ashes
306 Lesbos shall be for ever destroyed by Eridanus.
307 Woe unto thee Cibyra, thou fair city, cease thy rout,
308 and Hierapolis, thou land uniquely wedded to the god of wealth.
309 Thou shalt have, what thou hast longed to have, gold but gold of many tears,
310 burying it in the earth by the streams of Thermodon.
311 And rock-clinging Tripolis by Maeander’s waters,
312 left widowed by the billows at night against the shore,
313 God’s Providence shall one day make a full end of thee unto the ground.
314 May it never befall me to choose willingly the land that is neighbour to Phoebus.
315 One day a meteor from on high shall destroy delicate Miletus,
316 forasmuch as she chose the deceitful verse of Phoebus,
317 and men’s learned study and prudent counsel.
318 Be favourable, Father of all, to the delicate fruitful land,
319 to great Judaea, that we may see thy purposes.
320 Her first didst thou know, O God, with thine acts of favour,
321 so that she seemed to all mankind to be the object of thy special grace,
322 and to realize what a charge she had from thee.
323 Thrice wretched me, I long to see the Thracians’ works,
324 and the wall that spans two seas, dragged by Ares
325 river-like in the dust like a fishing diver.
326 Wretched Hellespont, a son of the Assyrians shall one day yoke thee.
327 †The Thracians’ battle shall come and utterly destroy thy might†:
328 and an Egyptian king shall take Macedonia,
329 and a barbarian clime shall cast down the might of rulers.
330 Lydians and Galatians, Pamphylians and Pisidians
331 bear rule with all their people armed with bitter strife.
332 Thrice-wretched Italy, thou shalt remain all desolate, unwept.
333 A baleful beast in thy luxuriant land shall destroy thee.
334 †When the broad heaven above is clear†,
335 men shall hear a crash, as of thunder, even the voice of God.
336 And even the imperishable fires of the sun itself shall be no more,
337 nor shall there be any more the bright moonlight
338 in the last time when God shall reign.
339 All things shall become black and darkness shall be over the earth,
340 (and mortals shall be blind and beasts evil) and trouble.
341 That day shall last long time, so that
342 men will take note of God Himself, the King, the Watcher of all from heaven.
343 Then he shall have no pity for those who are his foes,
344 when they spend themselves in sacrificing herds of lambs and sheep and lowing bulls,
345 of great calves too with gilded horns
346 to lifeless Hermes and gods of stone.
347 But let justice, wisdom, and glory hold sway over the just,
348 lest the Immortal God in anger destroy
349 the whole bloodstained race of men and their shameless kin.
350 We needs must love God the Father, the Wise, the Everlasting.
351 There shall be at the last time, about the waning of the moon,
352 a world-convulsing war deceitful in guilefulness.
353 And there shall come from the ends of the earth a matricide
354 fleeing and devising sharp-edged plans in his mind.
355 He shall ruin all the earth, and gain all power,
356 and surpass all men in the cunning of his mind.
357 That for which he perished he shall seize at once.
358 And he shall destroy many men and great tyrants,
359 and shall burn all men as none other ever did.
360 And those that were fallen he shall raise up again through contrary zeal.
361 And from the west shall come much war to men,
362 and streams of blood shall flow up to the banks of the deep-eddying rivers.
363 And gall shall distil in the plains of Macedonia† …
364 alliance, but to the king from the west destruction†.
365 And then a wintry blast shall blow throughout the earth,
366 and the plain shall be filled again with cruel war.
367 For fire shall rain on mortal men from the fields of heaven,
368 fire and blood, water, meteor, darkness, heaven’s night,
369 and consumption in war and a mist over the slain
370 shall destroy at once all kings and the best of men.
371 Then at last war’s piteous ruin shall be stopped
372 and no man shall fight any more with swords or steel,
373 nor with javelins either, for these things shall no more be permitted.
374 But the wise people that are left shall have peace,
375 having had trial of evil that later they might rejoice.
376 Ye matricides, cease from your shamelessness and wicked boldness.
377 Ye that of old foully furnished boys for abuse,
378 and set in your houses as harlots those who before were pure
379 with wanton violence and punishment and laboured foulness.
380 In thee a mother had incestuous commerce with her child,
381 and a daughter became the bride of her own father.
382 In thee even kings befouled their ill-starred mouth:
383 in thee evil men even found means to lie with beasts.
384 Silence, thou miserable, wicked city, from the revel that thou hadst.
385 For no longer under the roof of thy virgin-loving court shall the virgins tend the divine fire.
386 Quenched from thee was thine house, desired of old,
387 when for the second time I saw thine house hurled
388 headlong down, lapped with fire, by an unholy hand,
389 thine ever flourishing house, the temple that guarded thy god,
390 made with holy hands,
391 and such as men from their soul and body itself trusted would be ever immortal.
392 Not recklessly do they praise a God of senseless earth,
393 nor did a cunning workman among them make a god of stone:
394 no ornament of gold to lead souls astray do they worship.
395 But God, the great Father of all within whom is the breath of God,
396 they were wont to reverence with holy sacrifices and hecatombs.
397 But now an obscure unholy king has gone up
398 and cast it down and left it without inhabitant
399 with a great multitude and with doughty warriors.
400 But he himself perished when he landed on the mainland from the Eternal Land,
401 and no such sign has yet been wrought on men
402 that others should think to lay in ruins the great city.
403 For there has come from the plains of heaven a blessed man
404 with the sceptre in his hand which God has committed to his clasp:
405 and he has won fair dominion over all, and has restored to all
406 the good the wealth which the former men took.
407 And he has destroyed every city from its foundations with sheets of fire,
408 and burnt up the families of the men who before wrought evil,
409 and the city which God loved he made
410 more radiant than the stars and the sun and the moon;
411 and he set it as the jewel of the world, and made a temple
412 exceeding fair in its fair sanctuary, and fashioned it
413 in size of many furlongs, with a giant tower
414 touching the very clouds and seen of all,
415 so that all the faithful and all the righteous may see
416 the glory of the invisible God, the vision of delight.
417 East and West have hymned forth the glory of God:
418 for no longer are wretched mortals beset with deeds of shame,
419 adulteries and unnatural passions for boys,
420 murder and tumult, but rivalry is fair among all.
421 It is the last time of the saints, when God accomplishes these things,
422 God the sender of thunder, the Creator of the great Temple.
423 Woe to thee, Babylon, golden-throned and golden-sandalled,
424 thou who for many a year wast queen, sole sovereign of the world,
425 of old so great and cosmopolitan, no more shalt thou lie
426 on golden mountains and by Euphrates’ streams.
427 Thou shalt be levelled by an earthquake’s shock: and the dread Parthians
428 have made thee rattle through and through. Keep thy mouth with the bridle of constraint,
429 thou race of the Chaldees, and ask not nor care
430 how thou mayst rule the Persians or have dominion over the Medes.
431 For because of the empire that thou hadst, †thou shalt send hostages
432 to Rome, even those who were in bondage to Asia†.
433 Therefore thou thyself, thou haughty queen, shalt come to the summons of thine
434 adversaries on whose account thou hast sent ransom,
435 and for thy crooked words thou shalt give a bitter reckoning to thine enemies.
436 And in the last time the sea shall be dry,
437 and no longer shall ships sail to Italy,
438 and great Asia which produces everything shall be water,
439 and Crete a plain. Cyprus shall have a great sorrow
440 and Paphos shall lament aloud her grievous fate, so that
441 even Salamis the great city shall perceive that she has suffered a great sorrow.
442 Now again the dry land up to the sea-shore shall be barren,
443 and swarms of locusts shall waste the land of Cyprus.
444 Ye ill-starred mortals, ye shall weep when ye look toward Tyre.
445 Phoenicia, grievous wrath awaits thee, till thou fallest
446 with a grievous fall so that the Sirens in very truth should weep.
447 There shall be a time in the fifth generation, when Egypt’s destruction shall cease,
448 when kings ally themselves in shameless marriages.
449 And Pamphylian races shall settle in Egypt,
450 and in Macedonia and in Asia and among the Lycians
451 there shall be a world-convulsing war with streams of blood in the dust,
452 which a king of Rome and western princes shall arrest.
453 When a wintry blast distils in form of snow,
454 and a great river and the largest lakes are frozen,
455 straightway a barbarian horde shall make its way to the land of Asia,
456 and shall destroy the race of the dreaded Thracians as though it were but puny.
457 And then mortals in desperation shall devour their own parents
458 in the last stages of famine, and shall consume them greedily as food.
459 And from every house beasts shall devour the table
460 and the very birds shall devour all mortals,
461 and as a result of grievous war the bloodstained ocean shall be filled
462 with the flesh and blood of the insensate men.
463 Then such faintness shall there be throughout the earth
464 that one may tell the number of men and the measure of women.
465 Myriad shall be the lamentations of the wretched generation about the term
466 when the sun sets never to rise again,
467 waiting to be bathed in the waters of ocean.
468 For it has seen the unholy villainies of many men.
469 There shall be a moonless darkness even around the great heaven,
470 and no slight mist shall envelop the folds of earth
471 a second time. But then God’s light shall guide
472 all those good men who have raised their hymns to God.
473 Isis, thou goddess thrice ill-starred, thou shalt remain by the streams of Nile
474 alone, frenzied but speechless by the sands of Acheron,
475 and no memory of thee shall remain throughout the whole earth.
476 And thou, Sarapis, covered with many useless stones,
477 shalt lie a giant corpse in Egypt thrice ill-starred.
478 And all who have brought the precious things of Egypt to thee,
479 shall weep for thee bitterly, bethinking them of the Immortal God.
480 They shall know thee to be nothing, all who have sung hymns to thee as God.
481 And then one of the priests shall say, a linen-clad man,
482 Come, let us set up the fair temple of the true God.
483 Come, let us change the grievous custom we have received from our fathers,
484 whereby, performing processions and rites to gods of stone and earthenware, they had no sense.
485 Let us turn ourselves and hymn the Immortal God,
486 the Father himself who is from everlasting,
487 the Chief of all, the True, the King,
488 the Father, Sustainer of souls, the Great Eternal God.
489 And then in Egypt there shall be a great and holy temple,
490 . and to it the people whom God made shall bring sacrifices.
491 To these God shall grant a life without decay.
492 But when, leaving the shameless tribes of the Triballi,
493 the Ethiopians tarry to till the land of Egypt,
494 they shall begin their evil deeds that all the latter things may come to pass.
495 For they shall destroy the great temple of the land of Egypt.
496 And God shall rain grievous wrath upon them down to earth,
497 so as to destroy all the evil and all the lawless.
498 And there shall be no more any sparing in that land
499 because they did not keep that which God entrusted to them.
500 I saw the threatening of the gleaming sun among the stars,
501 and the moon’s grievous wrath among the lightning flashes.
502 The stars travailed with war: and God suffered them to fight.
503 For instead of the sun long flames rose in revolt,
504 and the two-horned revolution of the moon was changed.
505 Lucifer waged battle, mounted on Leo’s back.
506 Capricorn smote the heel of the young Taurus:
507 and Taurus snatched from Capricorn his day of return.
508 Orion removed the Scales so that they remained no more.
509 Virgo changed her sphere with the Twins in Aries.
510 The Pleiad appeared no more: and the Dragon disowned the Belt.
511 Pisces entered into the girdle of Leo.
512 Cancer did not stay, for he feared Orion.
513 Scorpio drew up his tail, because of savage Leo:
514 and the dog-star perished from the sun’s flame.
515 The might of doughty Lucifer burned up Aquarius.
516 Heaven itself was stirred till it shook the warriors,
517 and in anger cast them headlong to the earth.
518 And smitten swiftly into the waters of Ocean,
519 they kindled the whole earth: and the sky remained starless. ↑ The whole Fragment is preserved in Theoph. ad Autol. ii. 36. The first line is quoted by Clem. Al. Strom. iii. 3. 14. The strong monotheism of the passage is probably Jewish rather than Christian, but Fehr ( Stud. in Or. Sib. , p. 16 ff.) points out its close similarity with Orphic writings. ↑ 5, 6. Cf. Wisdom xii. 1. The lines are quoted in Lact. Div. Inst. iv. 6. 5 as coming from the beginning of the Erythraean Sibyl. In 6 Lact. has θεόν for βροτῶν , but this is probably a Christian alteration. ↑ 7–9. Quoted by Justin, Coh. ad Graec. 16. ↑ 10. Cf. iii. 17; Deut. v. 26. ↑ 12. Geffcken quotes a similar thought ascribed to Socrates in Clem. Al. Protrept. vi. 71. ↑ 14. The rendering follows the restoration of Nauck. ↑ testing time , κριτήριον , is of doubtful meaning. Geffcken quotes Philo, De Opif. Mund. 20, p. 14, in which it appears to mean ‘discrimination’. The phrase ‘common light’ is probably of Stoic origin. It recurs in iii. 494. ↑ 22. For the idea that the heathen gods are dead cf. iii. 545 ff., viii. 393. ↑ 28–35. Quoted in Clem. Al. Protrept. viii. 37. Line 28 is also quoted in Strom. v. 14. 116. ↑ 30. Alexandre supposes the ‘sweet-eyed light’ to refer to Christ. But the thought is more of the actual sun declaring the glory of God. ↑ The second Fragment is also found in Theophilus ( ad Aut. ii. 3. 2), and is alluded to specifically in [Constantine’s] Or. ad sanct. coet. 4. It appears to be closely connected with the following Fragment. ↑ The Fragment is preserved in Theoph. ad Aut. ii. 36. 29. The first and the second lines are quoted in Hipp. Philos. v. 16, and in Lact. Div. Inst. i. 8. 3, and alluded to in Justin, Cohort. ad Graec. 23. 6. ↑ keeps alive . The verb ψυχοτροφεῖται is apparently found nowhere else. The middle is a little awkward, and Opsopoeus’ reading, ψυχοτροφεῖ τε (from M), is not reliable. ↑ 12. Cf. Ps. viii. 7, 8. Philo, De Opif. Mundi 28 (the whole chapter should be read). ↑ 17–19. Quoted by Lact. De Ira Dei xxii. 7, as from Erythraean Sibyl. ↑ 18, 19. Cf. Sirach xxxix. 25. ↑ 21. The question is a highly compressed one. For the thought cf. iii. 57 ff. ↑ limitless , ἀπείρονα , an emendation of Wilamowitz. ↑ look moth-eaten . The phrase σητόβρωτα δέδορκε is scornfully modelled on the heroic idiom πῦρ … δεδορκώς (Odyss. xix. 446, &c.). The sarcasm is very effective. The deified cats pilfer savoury morsels, and the images are covered with spiders’ webs. ↑ who lead on … by guile , δόλῳ ἡγητῆρες is Wilamowitz’s suggestion for δολοήτορες . ↑ This line and the next are deficient. There is nothing to show how they should be filled up. ↑ † incline †. The verb is uncertain. MS. reading is ἀνακλινοῖ . Rz. alters to ἀνακλίνοις , but the optative is awkward after the imperative. Perhaps read ἀνακαίνου , ‘renew.’ ↑ 38. The metaphor of the cup is probably derived from Isa. li. 17. ↑ 45. Mr. ‘being ashamed of lies in the futile idols’. ↑ 46–48. Quoted by Lact. Div. Inst. ii. 12. 19. ↑ 47. The phrase inherit life recalls Matt. xix. 29, but is not exclusively a Christian conception. ↑ sweet bread . This is probably manna, which is to be the food of the blessed. Cf. Sib. iii. 746 and 2 Baruch xxix. 8. ↑ 1–7. Introduction. The Divine compulsion. ↑ 1. The line needs emendation to make it scan. Read ὑψίβρομε, μάκαρ, οὐράνιε ὃς ἔχεις τὰ Χερουβίμ . The scansion goes more by accent than by strict rules, and indeed in all this section there are metrical abnormalities. ↑ 3. The Sibyl regularly represents herself as speaking under Divine compulsion, cf. infr. l. 295. The Fathers distinguish her inspiration from that of the Hebrew prophets by its unwilling character.