The augurs of ancient Rome and modern meteorologists have a fair amount in common. Both use, or used, a technique neatly summed up by William Shakespeare several hundred years ago:
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd,
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.
But Michel de Notre Dame, better known by his Latin name, Nostradamus, had methods more mysterious. He specialised in long-range forecasts, and was not an optimist. The prophecies of Nostradamus were decidedly apocalyptic in tone, portraying the fate of mankind as dominated by disaster, death and horror, and indeed it was this view of life as a succession of terrible Armageddons, and the tantalising fear which it instilled, that led to the wide popularity of his vague pronouncements.
Nostradamus was born in 1503, and died 433 years ago today, on July 2nd, 1566. He trained as a physician, and was successful enough in that profession to become the personal doctor of King Charles IX of France. But his forte was astrology, and in 1555 he published a book which has been a source of endless speculation ever since. Les Centuries was a collection of 1,000 rhyming quatrains, each of which was filled with mysterious references to alleged future events.
Among the events which the adherents of Nostradamus claim he has foretold are the capture of the town of Arras from the Spaniards by Louis XIV, the flight of Louis XVI to Varenne during the Revolution, and even the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler, this last encapsulated in the line, Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera: "The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister".
Another quatrain has it that:
Aupres des portes et dedans deux cites
Seront deux fleaux et oncques n'apperceu un tel.
"Near the harbour and in two cities will be two scourges the like of which have never been seen before" is taken to be a reference to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
But those events are all behind us: perhaps we should pay more attention to:
Apres le siege tenu dix sept ans,
Cinq changeront en tel revolvuterme.
This tells us that "After the See has been held for 17 years, five will change within the same period of time". If we remember that Pope John Paul II has now reigned as pope well in excess of the designated spell, the quatrain as a whole can be interpreted as a prophecy that there will be only five more popes before the Second Coming.
Repent ye all, I say! Repent!