The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
and blind mortals, and evil beasts, and misery.
That day shall be, and long shall be its season, until men perceive
the lord himself, God who oversees all things from heaven above.
He himself shall have no mercy then upon hostile men,
who sacrifice herds of lambs and sheep and loud-bellowing bulls,
and great gold-horned calves
to lifeless Hermai and gods of stone.
Let justice and wisdom and the glory of the righteous go before;
lest the imperishable God, once roused to wrath, utterly destroy
the whole race of men, their very life, and the shameless tribe.
One must cherish the begetter, God, ever wise and everlasting.
In the last season, near the ending of the moon's course,
there shall be world-maddened war, treacherous in its thieving guile.
And a matricide man shall arrive out of earth's farthest bounds,
a fugitive, plotting sharp-tongued schemes in his mind,
who shall bring down the whole earth and master all things,
and shall devise all things more cunning than all mankind;
for whose sake he himself perished, yet he shall seize it at once.
He shall lay waste to many men, and mighty tyrants too,
and shall set all things ablaze as no other ever did,
but those who cower he shall raise up again, out of zeal (rivalry).
And from the west there shall come great war upon men,
and blood shall flow as far as the bank of the deep-eddying rivers.
And the wrath of Macedonia shall drip down upon the plains—
he shall grant alliance from the west, but ruin to the king.
And then a wintry blast shall blow across the earth,
and the plain shall again be filled with the evil of war.
For fire shall rain upon mortals from the floors of heaven,
fire and blood, water, whirlwind, darkness, a heavenly night,
and wasting death in war, and mist over the slaughtered,
and it shall destroy together all kings and the noblest of men.
Then thus the pitiful ruin of war shall cease,
and no longer shall any man make war with swords, nor with iron,
nor even with arrows—for that shall no longer be lawful again.
And the wise people who are left shall keep peace,
having endured wickedness, that afterward they may rejoice.
Matricides, cease from your insolence and your wicked daring,
you who of old impurely furnished the bed of children,
and set upon the rooftops as harlots those once chaste,
with outrage and punishment and toilsome shame.
For in you a mother mingled with her own son, lawlessly,
and a daughter was joined as bride to her own father;
in you kings too defiled their ill-fated mouths,
in you wicked men found their bed even with beasts.
Be silent, all-lamented evil city, holding your revels;
for no longer from you, of the nurturing forest,
shall maiden girls tend the god-inspired fire.
Quenched, at your hand, is the long-desired house,
when for the second time I saw the house cast down,
hurled headlong, drenched in fire by an impure hand.