The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
And then the famed kingdom of the great, godly lord
will fail him, as the years roll round to their end;
and at the close of his life, having shown forth his own son
as heir ascending to the throne, he will die by his own fate,
leaving the royal power to a fair-haired ruler,
who will bear the name of twice ten, and being born
king from his father's line, will inherit the rule.
This man, with a more excessive reckoning than any,
will rival great-hearted, overweening Heracles in all things,
and will excel with mighty weapons of war,
and in hunting and in horsemanship will hold
the greatest glory; but he will live perilously, alone by himself.
A fearful sign there will be while this one rules:
over the ground of Rome there will be cloud and mist,
so that no man can see his neighbor beside him.
And then at once wars and grievous griefs,
when the ruler himself, mad with lust, the frenzied one,
shall come disgracing his own kin in the marriage bed,
shameful, in reckless and unholy weddings.
Then, hidden in widowhood, a great, destroying man,
nursing his wrath, will vent his evil in the bath-house,
a man a murderer, bound by treacherous fates.
Know then that Rome's ruinous hour draws near,
for the sake of jealous rule; and many will perish
in the Palladian halls beneath the hands of Ares.
And then Rome will be widowed, and will pay for all
that she alone once did in her many wars.
My heart weeps, and my spirit weeps within me;
for since the first king, O high-necked Rome,
established one good law for men upon the earth
[and the utterance of the mighty deathless God descended to earth,]
until the end of the nineteenth reign,
let the span of years be filled: twice a hundred, twice twenty,
twice two, and six months besides -- then a widowing --
the twentieth king, when in your own halls
he pours out blood, struck by the sharp sword,
the number eighty, whose letter reveals
his name, and bearing heavy old age; he will make her a widow
in a little time, when many warriors,
many fallen, and slaughters and man-killings,
and ruinous strifes and miseries for the sake of victory
in rule, and many, horses and men together,
will fall upon the ground, cut down in wars.
And then another man will come, bearing the number ten
as the sign of his name, and he will do much
grief and groaning, and he will lay waste to many;
but he himself, swift-fated, will in turn be brought low and fall,
struck down by mighty Ares with gleaming iron.
Another, a warrior bearing the number fifty, will come,
roused from the East for the sake of empire.