The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
with giant hands, alone, over the whole ordered world,
coming down from on high, you will dwell beneath the earth.
with naphtha and pitch and brimstone and much fire
you will be utterly blotted out, and be ashes for all ages,
burning; and everyone who looks on will hear a bellowing,
a great mourning cry from Hades, and the gnashing of teeth,
and your own hands beating your godless breast.
night is the same for all alike, for those who have wealth
and for the poor; naked from the earth, naked again to the earth
they come and finish, completing the time of their life.
no slave is there, no master, and no tyrant,
no kings, no rulers swollen with great pride,
no lawyer-orator, no magistrate who judges for money;
none pour out blood in sacrifice with libations at altars;
no drum sounds, no cymbal . . . . . . . . . .
no many-holed flute with its mind-maddening voice,
no hissing pipe carrying the likeness of a coiling serpent,
no trumpet, barbarous-voiced herald of wars;
none drunk in lawless revels, none in dancing;
no note of the lyre, no evil-working device;
no strife, no many-colored wrath, and no sword
is there among the dead, but one common age for all. —
the key-keeper of the great prison, at the judgment-seat of God. —
and with golden images, silver ones, and stone ones,
make yourselves beautiful, so that you may come to the bitter day,
your first punishment, Rome, and see the gnashing of teeth.
and no longer will anyone lay a slave's yoke on your neck,
not the Syrian, not the Greek, not the barbarian, no other nation.
you will be sacked and made to pay for all that you have done,
and wailing in terror you will pay, until you repay everything;
and you will become a spectacle to the world and a disgrace to all. —
from then on, the sixth generation of Latin kings
will finish out its last span of life and give up the scepter.
another king of that same line will come to reign,
who will hold sway over all the earth and wield the royal staff,
and he will rule of his own accord (autokerasta, a corrupt word) by the counsels of the Most High God;
his children and his children's children, an unshaken line —
for so it stands decreed, as the wheel of time turns round,
whenever the kings of Egypt come to number thrice five.
from then, when the phoenix of the fifth year has come round,
he will come to ravage the race of peoples, the countless tribes,
the nation of the Hebrews. then Ares will plunder Ares,
and he himself will destroy the overweening threat of the Romans.
for at that time the flourishing power of Rome perished,
the ancient mistress over many neighboring peoples.
no longer may the soil of luxuriant Rome prevail,
when the conqueror comes from Asia together with Ares.
and having done all this he will come to the city built on its foundations.
three times three hundred, and forty, and eight
years you will fulfill, when your evil fate comes upon you.