Book IV

Hear, people of proud Asia, Europe too,
How many things by great loud-sounding mouth,
All true and of my own, I prophesy.
No oracle of false Apollo this,
Whom vain men called a god, though he deceived;
But of the mighty God, whom human hands
Shaped not, like speechless idols cut in stone.
For his house is no dedicated stone
Set for a temple, wholly deaf and dumb,
A great and sore dishonor to mankind;
For he, not formed by mortal hands, from earth
May not be seen, nor measured by men's eyes.
He looks on all, himself by no one seen.
His are the murky night, and day, and sun,
And stars, and moon, and seas that swarm with fish.
And land, and rivers, and perennial fountains.
Creatures designed for life, and rains that serve
To bring forth fruit, and tree, and wine, and oil.
The same has moved me in my inmost soul
As with a whip, how many and great things
Now and hereafter shall befall mankind.
From the first generation to the eleventh,
Truly to tell. For all things he hath spoken
Who himself bringeth all things to an end.
But thou, O people, hear the Sibyl's words,
Who pours from hallowed mouth a truthful strain.
Blessed of men shall they be on the earth
As many as shall love the mighty God,
Giving him praise before they eat and drink,
Trusting in piety. Such, when they see
Temples and altars, copies of dumb stones
Without worth, and polluted with the blood
Of living things and sacrifice of beasts,
Reject them all; but they shall look upon
One God's great glory, having not committed
Atrocious murder, nor acquired vast gain
By stealing, which things are most horrible;
Nor shameful longing for another's bed
Had they, nor vile and hateful lust of males.
Such mode of life and customs other men
Shall never imitate, as if they longed
For shamelessness; but children without sense
With jest and laughter ridiculing them —
Presumptuous deeds and vile — shall lie to them
In as many things as they themselves shall do;
For hard to trust is the whole race of men.
But when the final judgment of the world
And mortals comes, which God himself shall bring,
Judging at once the impious and the just,
The ungodly under darkness he will send,
And they shall know what wickedness they wrought;
But in a fruitful land the just shall dwell,
God giving them breath, life, and sustenance.
But all these things shall surely come to pass
In the tenth generation; and what things
From the first generation shall occur
I now declare. First shall the Assyrians rule
Over all men, and wield authority
During six generations of the world,
From the time when, the God of heaven being wroth.
Sea covered earth and cities and all men,
A whelming flood of waters breaking in.
The Medes shall overcome them, and exult
Two generations only on the throne,
At which time these events shall come to pass:
Dark night shall be at the mid-hour of day.
And from the heaven the stars and circling moon
Shall disappear, and earthquakes shake the land,
And many cities and the works of men
Hurl to the dust; and then out of the deep
The islands of the sea shall peer aloft.
But when the great Euphrates overflows
With blood, then also both among the Medes
And Persians shall arise the direful noise
Of battle, and the Medes, discomfited
And falling underneath the Persian spears,
Shall flee beyond the mighty Tigris' waves.
The Persian power shall be of all the world
The mightiest, and unto them shall be
One generation of most prosperous rule.
But such foul deeds as men seek to avert —
Battle-cries, murders, quarrels, banishments,
Ruin of towers, and rising up of cities —
Shall take place when proud, boasting Hellas sails
O'er the broad Hellespont, and carries doom
Phrygia and to Asia. But to Egypt,
The land of many furrows and much wheat,
Shall come a blasting famine twenty years,
What time the Nile, corn-nourisher, shall hide
Somewhere beneath the earth his sable wave.
Hellas there shall come a mighty king
From Asia, with innumerable ships,
Lifting his spear on high, and he shall walk
The wet paths of the deep, and sail alone
Where others tread on foot; him, fugitive
From battle, fearful Asia shall receive.
And Sicily the wretched shall a stream
Of powerful fire destroy, while Etna's flame
Breaks forth, and down into the molten stream
Shall Croton, great and powerful city, fall.
And strife shall be in Hellas; they shall rage
Against each other, and hurl to the dust
Numerous cities, and kill many men
Wrangling; but equal is the strife for both.
But when at length the course of time shall come
To the tenth generation of mankind.
Then shall there be a slavish yoke and fear
Upon the Persians. And when Macedon
Shall boast the scepter, there shall come to Thebes
A terrible destruction; and the Carians
Shall dwell in Tyre, and Tyrians be destroyed.
And sand shall hide all Samos under shore;
Delos shall be no longer visible;
And Babylon, magnificent to see,
But small to fight, shall stand with vain hopes walled.
Macedonians shall dwell in Bactria,
And those of Bactria and Susa all
Shall flee away into the land of Greece.
These things shall come to pass when Pyramus,
Pouring his silvery eddies on the shore,
Shall reach afar unto a sacred isle.
And Sybaris shall fall, and Cyzicus,
When earthquakes shake the land, and cities perish.
Rhodes shall come the last but greatest woe.
Nor shall the Macedonians always rule;
But from the West a great Italian war
Shall blossom out, and under it the world.
Bearing a slavish yoke, shall subject be
To the Italians. Thou, O Carchedon,
Thy tower shall also to the ground be hurled.
Wretched Laodicea, thee some day
Shall earthquakes damage, leveling to the dust;
But a city of broad streets shall rise again.
And also thou, O wretched Corinth, shalt
Some day behold thy utter overthrow.
O Lycian Myra, who art beautiful.
Thee also some time shall the heaving land
Hurl to the dust, and falling prone to earth,
Amid the din of battle thou shalt pray
To flee, an alien, to another land.
Then on the godless ones of Patara,
Along with thunders and with earthquake shocks
Another shall pour out a dark sea flood.
Also for thee, Armenia, there remains
A slavish fate, and then shall also come
Solyma an evil blast of war,
From Italy, and God's great temple spoil.
But when they, trusting folly, shall forget
Piety, and foul murder consummate
Around the temple, then from Italy
A mighty king, even like a star, shall flee
Unseen, unknown, beyond Euphrates' ford.
Then shall he expiate the bloody crime
Of matricide, and many other deeds
Which he with wicked hands will have performed.
And many about Rome's sacred plain shall bleed,
While he escapes beyond the fatherland.
But into Syria Rome's great chief shall come
And burn with fire the temple, and with spear
Shall slaughter many men of Solyma,
And spoil the great broad country of the Jews.
And then, too, shall an earthquake overthrow
Both Salamis and Paphos, and dark floods
Shall wildly dash on wave-washed Cyprus' shore.
But when from deep clefts of the Italian land
Fire shall come whirling into the broad heaven
And many cities burn and men destroy,
And a vast mass of heated ashes shall fill
The expanse of air, and the small drops of rain
Shall fall like a red mildew out of heaven,
Then know the anger of the heavenly God,
Because they slew the blameless godly race.
And thereupon into the West shall come
The wrangle of a newly wakened war,
And bearing a huge spear, Rome's fugitive
Shall cross Euphrates with many myriads.
O hapless Antioch, thee they shall call
No more a city, when thou fallest down
Through want of understanding round thy spears.
Then also famine and war's horrid din
Shall ruin Cyprus. Woe, wretched Cyprus, woe!
Thou shalt be hidden by the sea's broad wave,
Which by the wintry blasts is tossed on high.
But into Asia there shall come great wealth,
Which Rome herself, once plundering, put away
In her luxurious homes; and twice as much
Of other things shall she to Asia give;
And then there shall be an excess of war.
And Carian cities by Maeander's wave,
Which have been beautifully fenced with towers.
Shall by a bitter famine be destroyed,
When the Maeander his dark water hides.
But when from men shall perish piety.
And faith and righteousness, and they shall live
In recklessness profane, and insolence
Presumptuous, and full many other sins.
And of the pious no one makes account,
But from a want of understanding all
Like children utterly destroy themselves,
In violence exulting, and in blood
Folding their hands, then will it be discerned
That God is mild no longer, but surcharged
With fury, and by a great conflagration
Will utterly destroy the race of men.
Ah, miserable mortals, change these things,
Nor tempt the mighty God to wrath extreme;
But letting go swords, wailings, homicides,
And insolence, wash in the flowing stream
The whole body, and with hands stretched out to heaven,
Seek pardon for the former deeds, and heal
Bitter impiety with piety.
And God will give repentance, not destroy.
And he will stay his wrath, if ye will all
Observe in your hearts precious piety.
But if, ill-minded, ye obey me not,
But loving wickedness, receive these things
With a base hearing, over all the world
Fire shall be, and the greatest omens, swords.
And trumpets, at the rising of the sun;
All earth the mighty roaring sound shall hear.
The whole land he will burn, and the whole race
Of men shall perish, and he will consume
All cities, with the rivers and the seas;
These all shall be reduced to smoky dust.
But when all things become an ashy pile,
God will put out the fire unspeakable
Which he once kindled, and the bones and ashes
Of men will God himself again transform.
And raise up mortals as they were before.
And then will be the judgment; God himself
Will sit as judge, and judge the world again.
As many as committed impious sins
Shall Stygian Gehenna's depths conceal
'Neath molten earth and dismal Tartarus.
But the pious shall again live on the earth,
And God will give them spirit, life, and means
Of nourishment, and all shall see themselves,
Beholding the sun's sweet and cheerful light.
O happiest man, who at that time shall live!