The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
And you, Baris, will fall, and Cyzicus too, when the earth
is shaken by earthquakes and cities slip down.
A last evil will come upon the Rhodians too, but the greatest.
Nor will Macedon hold power any longer; but out of the west
an Italian war great shall blossom, beneath which the world
shall serve, bound in a slave's yoke to the sons of Italy.
And you, wretched Corinth, shall one day behold your own capture.
Carthage, your tower too shall bow its knee to the ground.
Suffering Laodicea, an earthquake shall one day lay you low,
flattening you — yet the city, once founded, shall rise again.
O fair Myra of Lycia, never shall the trembling earth
hold firm beneath you; falling prone upon the ground
you shall pray to flee to another land, like an exile,
when once the tumult of the Patareans, for their impieties,
with thunders and earthquakes spreads the sea's black water wide.
Armenia, on you too a slave's necessity remains;
upon the people of Jerusalem too shall come an evil storm of war
out of Italy, and it shall raze the great temple of God,
when in their folly, trusting in themselves, their piety
they cast away, and accomplish hateful murders before the temple—
and then, out of Italy, a mighty king, like a runaway slave,
shall flee, unseen, unheard of, beyond the stream of Euphrates,
when he has borne the guilt of a mother's hateful murder
and many other things besides, trusting to an evil hand.
Many around the throne of Rome shall redden the ground with blood
when that man has fled beyond the Parthian land.
Into Syria shall come a champion of Rome, who with fire
shall burn the temple of Jerusalem entire, and slaughtering many men besides
of the Jews, shall destroy their great, wide-wayed land.
Then shall a quake lay waste to Salamis and Paphos as well,
when the black water overwhelms wave-tossed Cyprus.
But when from a fissure in the Italian earth
a fire-brand, turned back, reaches the wide heaven,
and burns many cities and destroys many men,
and much smoldering ash fills the great sky,
and drops fall from heaven like red ochre,
know then the wrath of the heavenly God,
for they shall destroy the innocent race of the pious.
And then, toward the west, when the strife of war is roused,
the exile from Rome shall come too, lifting his great spear,
having crossed the Euphrates together with many myriads.
Wretched Antioch, they shall no longer call you a city,
when in your folly you fall beneath the spears.
And then plague and dread battle shall destroy Cyrrhus.
Alas, wretched Cyprus, the broad wave of the sea
shall hide you, hurled up by wintry storms.
And great wealth shall come to Asia, which once Rome herself,
having plundered it, stored away in her house of many possessions—
and then twice as much again, and more besides, shall she pay back
to Asia; then shall come the war's requital in excess.