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Fake Nostradamus Quatrains and September 11, 2001 |
The following quatrain has circulated on the internet:
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
two brothers torn apart by chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will sucumb.
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.
This is NOT a Nostradamus prophecy.
The Nostradamus Repository Organization very sensibly traces this falsehood to a hypothetical situation discussed by Neil Marshall. This is another example of the many fake Nostradamus prophecies that appear in the popular press.
No interpreter predicted any event like what happened on September 11, 2001, although images of nuclear and terrorist destruction can easily be found in Nostradamus. John Hogue points out that "there are repeated and cryptic references in the quatrains to a catastrophe coming from the sky or to fire from the skies" (Hogue, Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies Barnes & Noble Books 1999, p. 392). Hogue also sees in the quatrains the theme of the West's overreaction to terrorism.
Some authentic quatrains might be relevant to this situation. Consider the following Nostradamus prophecies (all Hogue's translations):
| C1 Q87 | Earth-shaking fire from the center of the Earth. Will cause the towers around the New City to shake: Two great rocks for a long time will make war, And then Arethusa will color a new river red. |
Arethusa is a classical Greek nymph who changed herself into a spring. Hogue interprets red Arethusa as lava flow from a volcano. | |
| C2 Q6 | Near the harbors within two cities, There will happen two scourges the like of which was never before seen: Famine, pestilence within, people put out by the sword, Cries for help to the great immortal God. |
Interpreted as perhaps the port cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or victims of a future nuclear terrorist attack. | |
| C2 Q81 | Through fire from the sky the city is almost burned by the sun, The urn menaces Deucalion once again, Sardinia vexed by the Punic vessel, After that Libra will abandon her Sun. |
The urn of Aquarius is a metaphor for floods or a terrorist bomb blast. The sun finishes its transit of Libra around 22 October. | |
| C2 Q94 | The lands populated by humans will become uninhabitable, Great disagreement and discord in order to obtain lands: Kingdoms given to men incapable of prudence, Then for the great brothers death and dissension. |
Although not a particularly informative quatrain, the reference to brothers relates this to the fake prediction of the WTC bombings. | |
| C5 Q8 | There will be let loose living fire and hidden death, Inside dreadful globes--horrible! frightful! By night the city will be reduced to dust by the fleet, The city on fire, helpful to the enemy. |
The image of bombing doesn't quite fit, but the image of being inside globes is not easily interpreted. | |
| C5 Q32 |
Where all is good, all well [in] Sun and Moon, Is abundant, its ruin approaches: It comes from the sky to sift through your fortune, In the same state as the seventh rock. |
| C5 Q81 | The royal bird over the city of the sun [Paris], By night will prophesy warnings for seven months in advance: The wall of the East will fall, thunder and lightening, In seven days the enemy directly at the gates. |
| C6 Q34 | From the machine of flying fire, It will come to trouble the besieged chief: Within there will be such sedition, That the dissolute ones will be in despair. |
| C6 Q97 | At forty-five degrees [latitude], the sky will burn, Fire approaches the great new city, Immediately a huge, scattered flame leaps up, When they want to have verification from the Normans [the Northern Bloc]. |
Probably New York City, although NYC does not lie at 45º, but 41º. Could the Normans be NATO? | |
| Presage 9 from Almanac of 1555 | Eight, fifteen, and five what disloyalty The evil spy will come to be permitted: Fire in the sky, lightning, fear, Papal terror, The west trembles, pressing too hard the Salty wine |
This dated prophecy has been interpreted in the context of the 1550s, but is suggestive, none the less. | |
Photo credit: AP 11 Sept 2001, taken from http://www.cbsnews.com/