Ruth Petit-Homme
April 17, 2010
English 10 Honors
1AB
Mysteries of History: Do Nostradamus’s prophecies come true?
What if there was a person who could predict the future with total promise? What if he could not only predict the course of events in his lifetime, but in the lifetime of others who would follow, decades, and even centuries after his own death? A man by the name of Michel de Nostradame, better known know to us by his pseudonym Nostradamus (Hogue 7), believed that his prophecies were evidently going to come true. He seemingly had a great affect on humankind, not only through prophecies, but also through his medicine. He was a practicing physician, astronomer and astrologer who lived in the mid 16th century who turned his hand to prophecy later in life (Sanghavi).
After spending most of his time from 1521-1529 in school, studying medicine and astrology, he had gone to Provence, to heal those stricken with the plague (Ovason 22).
Nostradamus had many prophecies; all varying in topics, from tragedies to natural causes, and even royal deaths. Do Nostradamus’s predictions really come true? Many people have believed Nostradamus’s prophecies for many centuries. The death of Nostradamus led to an even greater fascination about what he had accomplished in the course of his life. According to many current and ancient astrologers, the prophecies of Nostradamus remain a total mystery, and to many others, decoding these prophecies just takes a couple years and possibly decades of work. In the year 1555, Nostradamus published the first part of his Prophéties (Ovason 17).
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Due to the book, Prophéties, decoding these exact prophecies have seem to catch the eye of many, and because so many years have been given up by many astrologers, philosophers, and the Western Hemispheric eye, Nostradamus becomes even more renowned for his prophecies.
Nostradamus is quite well-known due to his four-line prophecies. Nostradamus’s most renowned quatrain that would have given him great status as a prophet would be the quatrain on King Henry II:
“The young Lion will overcome the old,
On a warlike field by single duel,
He will split his eyes in the golden cage.
Two wounds one, to die a cruel death.” (Ovason 196)
The prophecy would forecast the death of the young King Henry II, as David Ovason explains the meaning behind the quatrain, line by line. Ovason states that King Henry was 40, which clearly misses the concept of “young” quoted in line one, but in line two the death had taken place in the field of jousting, while in the third line he fines truly accurate, and the fourth line that out of the two men, Henry II and Comte de Montgomery, that were jousting, King Henry II was the only one “wounded” in the duel, and had died a “cruel death” as a result of the battle, accomplishing the prophecy of Nostradamus. Although, Ovason had proved the quatrain true, the lines remain very ambiguous. This quatrain may have clearly been about any young ruler, who had perished during their time of reign; also the date and place remain uncertain, which makes the quatrain still, slightly inaccurate.
Undoubtedly the most celebrated of Nostradamus’s quatrains in recent years would be the 9/11 disaster in New York, the “New City” as told by Richard Smoley. John Hogue, who agrees with Smoley, explains why using Quatrain 49, Century 10 as follows:
Garden of the world near the new city,
In the path of the hollow mountains:
It will be seized and plunged into a boiling cauldron,
Drinking by force the waters poisoned by sulfur. (Hogue)
This prophecy would foresee the terrorist attack that silenced America on September 1, 2001. John Hogue’s thought behind the quatrain is, with Quatrain 97, the “new city” or New York that bears the World Trade Center towers or “hollow mountains”, would ignite into flames and become engulfed by “force” into its own flame, meaning that the towers would each ignite, falling down in flames. This quatrain may have some coincidence, but according to many, the September 11, 2001 quatrain wasn’t written by Nostradamus himself, but it was an email that was sent out a couple of years after the attacks in New York had occurred, thus seem more like a coincidental quatrain about 9/11 instead. This quatrain, although seemed to be proved by mainly Nostradamus scholars such as John Hogue, still remains a mystery whether or not it can be proven true.
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Nostradamus had written 965 quatrains that trace unto the time he lived and into the future many centuries after his death. Finding that only less than a dozen of those prophecies have been deciphered leads me to conclude that Nostradamus may have been a well-known oracle and herbalist, but his prophecies of the future are not entirely up to par, which therefore, Nostradamus’s prophecies could have not come true. The events detailed in his prophecies are simply vague, and lack enough factual evidence to sustain the accuracy in the prophecies, such as the prophecy of the Death of King Henry II and 9/11.
The debate surrounding the man and his mysterious prophecies began over 400 years ago and will likely continue for years to come (“Nostradamus Effect”).
Although, he has greatly affected the way most see the future, his work during the Bubonic plague have saved lives. Nostradamus has successfully come up with encoded prophecies that shook the minds of ancient and current astrologers. Even though his prophecies may not seem accurate to many, Nostradamus still remains one of the greatest prophets to have walked Earth.
Works Cited
— Nostradamus: The New Millennium. London: HarperCollins, 2002. Print.
“Nostradamus Effect”. April 16 2010 .
Hogue, John. “Nostradamus Biography”. October 1, 2009. April 16 2010. Web.
Lorie, Peter. Nostradamus: the millennium and beyond. New York City, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Print.
Ovason, David. The Secrets of Nostradamus. Harper Paperbacks, 2002. Print.
Sanghavi, Nischal. “True Predictions of Nostradamus “. April 11, 2008. April 16 2010. Web.
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Smoley, Richard. The Essential Nostradamus. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print
