The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
and they set forth terrible words, false and unjust,
and stood up against the great king, God,
and falsely opened their polluted mouths. For this the god
will strike them with terrible blows over the whole
earth, and send upon them a bitter fate,
burning their cities and many foundations to the ground.
Woe to you, Crete of many sorrows — upon you shall come
a blow, and a fearful ruin shall lay you waste forever,
and all the earth shall see you smoking once again,
and fire shall never leave you through the ages, but you shall burn.
Woe to you, Thrace, for you shall come under a slave's yoke,
when the Galatians, joined with the sons of Dardanus,
rush upon Greece to sack it — then evil shall be yours,
and you shall give yourself to a foreign land, and receive nothing back.
Woe to you, Gog, and to all the Magog in your train,
and to the Marsi and the Angi — whatever evil fate draws near you,
and much evil too for the sons of the Lycians, the Mysians, and the Phrygians.
Much shall fall too among the peoples of Pamphylia and Lydia,
of the Mauri and the Ethiopians and the barbarous-tongued nations,
of the Cappadocians and the Arabians — why should I tell
each one in turn? For upon all who dwell upon the earth
the Most High shall send a terrible blow against the nations.
But upon the Greeks, when a great barbarian nation shall come,
it shall destroy the heads of many chosen men,
and shall waste many fat sheep belonging to mortals,
and herds of horses and mules and loud-bellowing cattle,
and shall lawlessly burn well-built houses with fire,
and shall lead many bodies into slavery, by force, to another land,
children and deep-girdled women alike,
falling tender before their captors' cruel feet from their chambers.
They shall see them bound in chains under barbarous-tongued enemies,
suffering every terrible outrage — and there will be for them
no small war to give aid, no defender of their life.
They shall see their own possessions and all their wealth
yielding fruit for the enemy, and trembling shall seize their knees.
A hundred shall flee, and one man shall destroy them all;
five shall stir up heavy wrath, and they, turning upon them,
basely mingled in dreadful war and tumult,
shall bring joy to their enemies, but grief to the Greeks.
And a slave's yoke shall then be laid upon all Greece;
war and pestilence together shall come upon all mortals,
and God shall forge a great bronze heaven on high,
and drought over all the earth, and make the earth itself iron.
Then afterward all mortals shall weep terribly
for the unsown and unplowed land; and upon the earth fire
shall lay low the great web he wove, who founded heaven and earth;
and out of the whole human race, one part in three shall be left living.
Greece, why do you put your trust in men, your leaders,
mortals who cannot escape the end of death?
Why do you bring vain gifts to the dead?