-NOSTRAHOAX EVENTS-
After SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Tuesday, curious false Nostradamus theories on his Quatrains and the WTC/DC plane hits made the urban folklore rounds of computers worldwide!
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The following FAQ was compiled by Mr. Peter Lemesurier and is being regularly posted in newsgroup alt.prophecies.nostrdamus.
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Q. Did Nostradamus predict the recent attack on New York City?
A. No. He never mentions New York City at all. Nor 'York', for that matter.
Q. But he mentions America, surely?
A. Only once -- at quatrain X.66, which you can check for yourself on the websites listed below. Apart from that, he himself insists in his covering letter to King Henri II that his prophecies are mainly about Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor. Only two other of his place-names fall outside that area.
Q. But what about the famous 'Fire from the sky hitting the New City at 45 degrees' prediction at VI.97?
A. New York City is not at 45 degrees latitude (it's all of 300 miles to the south), and the New City (as ever in Nostradamus) is Villeneuve-sur-Lot in France ('Villeneuve', like 'Naples', *means* 'new city') -- which IS roughly at 45 degrees.
Q. But couldn't Nostradamus's 'Five and forty' mean mean '40.5'?
A. No. The decimal place system had not yet been invented in Nostradamus's day. It was simply a perfectly ordinary way of saying '45'.
Q. But what about all the Nostradamus quatrains that people keep posting here?
A. Virtually all of them are either (a) badly corrupt, and deliberately twisted to fit the events (b) hopeless mistranslations, deliberately twisted to fit the events, or (c) pure inventions, and not by Nostradamus at all.
Q. What about "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 succumb", "The third big war will begin when the big city is burning" - Nostradamus 1654." ?
A. None of this was written by Nostradamus -- and he would have been .. er... 150 years old in 1654! If you doubt it, ask whoever sent it to you for the verse-number and/or the original French.
Q. What about "In the year of the new century and nine months,from the sky will come a great king of terror...the sky will burn at 45 degrees. Fire approaches the great new city...In the city of york there will be great collapse, twin brothers.Torn apart by chaos while the fortresses fall, the great leader will succumb; the third big war will come when the big city is burning."
A. It's a garbled mixture of carefully selected lines from two different Nostradamus quatrains (X.72, which in the original doesn't even mention a 'King of Terror' -- see third website listed below -- and is about *1999* [!!]; and VI.79, whose 'new city' on 45 degrees is Villeneuve in SW France, not New York, which is on 40 degrees 40 minutes) plus a bunch of other lines that are not by Nostradamus at all. Anybody can garble quotations like that -- even with the Bible... Er... "And he went and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). Go, and do thou likewise (Luke 10:37)."
Q. How about: "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. "
A. A more reliable (and artistic) translation of I.87 (which doesn't mention towers at all) would read: Earth-shaking fires from the world's centre roar: About Villeneuve* the earth shall be a-quiver. Two leaders long shall wage a fruitless war, Till Arethusa reddens a new river. * = 'New City Line 3 is in fact based on a French expression ('faire la guerre aux rochers' -- 'to make war on the rocks') which in fact means 'to struggle fruitlessly'. 'Deux grands' means 'two nobles'. No obvious connection with New York!
Q. What about: Garden of the world near the new city, In the path of the hollow mountains, It will be seized and plunged into the Vat, Drinking by force the waters poisoned by sulfur?
A. Relax. It's nothing to do with New York. The 'garden of the world' is Eden, which means 'delight', which is 'plaisance' in French, which is the name of a village on the road north from Villeneuve (= 'new city')-sur-Lot to the Dordogne, with its caves and the village of Aubeterre('Dawn of the World')-sur-Dronne, with its hollowed out church and tombs... All that the quatrain predicts is that someone ('he', not 'it') will be immersed and poisoned at Plaisance - which of course lies in an area that at one time was very familiar to Nostradamus during his time at Agen. This is one of Nostradamus's many obvious 'local' quatrains, in other words. His horizons were a lot smaller than many people often give him credit for. There is absolutely no excuse for imagining that all of his predictions apply to huge world-events.
Q. Can't I believe Erika Cheetham's book or Orson Welles's film, then?
A. No, unfortunately not, especially as the film is based directly - and rather fancifully -- on the book. Erika performed a valuable service in making some of the original French texts available worldwide for the first time -- but, alas, her 16th century French wasn't up to translating them reliably, and her credulity got in the way of her interpreting them reliably.
Q. Is there to be no Antichrist with a blue turban, then, calling down nuclear missiles on New York, as in the film?
A. Not if Nostradamus himself is to be believed. For him, the target of the Antichrist was always going to be *Europe* -- and, moreover, he would eventually be defeated.
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DIGITAL HOAX Photo spammed to emails WORLDWIDE! Plane headed for WTC tower with tourist on observation deck. Too Crass!
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