The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Know then the destroying race of Egypt draws near to ruin,
and then for the men of Alexandria the past year will seem the better one.
As much tribute as tribute-bearing Asia has yielded up to Rome,
three times as much wealth shall Asia receive back again
from Rome, and shall exact from her the destroying insult she once paid.
And as many of the Italians as tended house in Asia,
twenty times as many of them shall serve as slaves in Asia,
Italians in poverty, and shall owe countless debts besides.
O Rome, luxurious, golden, offspring of the Latin land,
O maiden, often drunk with your many-wooed marriages,
you shall be wedded as a slave, not in due order,
and often your mistress shall shear your soft and lovely hair,
and executing justice she shall cast you down from heaven to earth,
and again raise you up from earth to heaven,
because mortals held to a base and unjust life.
Samos too shall become sand, and Delos shall be no more Delos,
and Rome shall be a mere lane; but all the oracles shall be fulfilled.
When Smyrna perishes, no word shall be spoken of it. There shall be a judge,
but through evil counsels and the wickedness of rulers—
yet peace, calm and serene, shall come traveling to the land of Asia.
And Europe then shall be blessed, the sky rich in pasture,
for many years strong and untroubled by storm or hail,
bearing all things, both birds and creeping beasts of the earth.
O blessed indeed the man who shall live to see that time,
or the woman—so far from the empty-worded and rustic ways of the blessed ones—
for all good order shall come down from the starry heaven
upon mankind, and righteousness with it, and after her
harmony, wisest of all, surpassing all things for mortals,
and affection, and trust, and friendship even from strangers as from kin;
and lawlessness, blame, envy, wrath, and folly
shall flee from mankind, and poverty too shall flee, and necessity
and murder, and ruinous strifes, and grim contentions,
and thefts by night, and every evil on those days.
But Macedonia shall bring forth a heavy affliction for Asia,
and for Europe the greatest grief shall spring up
from the race of the son of Cronus and the offspring of bastard slaves.
That race shall also build up the city of Babylon as a stronghold,
and over all the land the sun looks down upon,
proclaimed as mistress, shall perish through evil ruin,
holding a name among far-wandering generations to come.
And there shall come, faithless, into the rich soil of Asia
a man clothed in a purple mantle upon his shoulders,
savage, lawless, ablaze with fire; for before him
a thunderbolt roused up its flame; and Asia shall bear an evil yoke,
all of it, and the earth, drenched, shall drink much blood.
But even so Hades shall tend all things utterly unseen,
and whatever race he himself wishes to destroy utterly,
from the seed of that one's race, that race shall be utterly destroyed;
granting one single root, which the man-destroyer shall also cut off
from ten horns; and beside it he shall plant another shoot,