Sibylline Oracles, Book Five

Fifth Book.

Come now, hear from me the lamentable time of the Latins.

Truly, first of all, after the kings who perished

of Egypt, all of whom the impartial earth received,

and after the founder of Pella, under whom all

the East was conquered, and the wealthy West,

whom Babylon exposed, and handed over as a corpse to Philip,

though he was proclaimed—not truly—to be of Zeus or Ammon,

and after the one of the race and blood of Assaracus,

who came from Troy, who cleaved the rushing fire,

and after many kings, after warlike men,

and after the infants, children of the sheep-devouring beast,

there will be a first king, who will reach the sum of twice ten

with his initial letter; and he will prevail greatly in wars;

and he will have the first mark from the tens; so that after him

he will rule who obtained the first letter of the alphabet as his initial;

before whom Thrace will cower, and Sicily, and next Memphis—

Memphis cast down prostrate through the wickedness of its rulers

and of an unsubdued woman who fell upon the wave.

And he will establish laws for the peoples and subject all things;

and after a long time he will hand over the rule to another,

who will have as his first letter the number three hundred

and the beloved name of a river; and over the Persians

he will rule, and Babylon; and then he will strike the Medes with the spear.

Then he who obtained the stroke of the number three will rule.

And he who will rule afterwards will have twice ten, as king

upon the first stroke; and he will reach

the farthest water of Ocean, darting on an ebb tide for the Ausonians.

And he who obtained the stroke of fifty will be sovereign,

a terrible serpent breathing out grievous war, who will one day stretch out his hands

against his own kin and destroy them, and throw all things into confusion,

competing in games, driving chariots, murdering, and daring countless atrocities;

and he will cut through the mountain between two seas and defile it with gore;

yet the destructive one will also vanish; then he will return,

making himself equal to God; but he will prove that he is not.

And after him three kings will perish by one another's hands.

Then a great destroyer of pious men will come,

who plainly displays the stroke of seven times ten.

And his son, who has the first stroke of three hundred, convicting him,

will strip away his power; and after him there will be a sovereign

from the stroke of four, of an ill-fated doom; but afterwards

a venerable mortal of the number fifty. But after him,

he who obtained the stamped beginning of the stroke of three hundred,

a mountain-walking Celt; and hastening toward the eastern conflict,

he will not escape an unseemly fate, but will perish;

whom foreign dust will hide as a corpse, yet dust bearing the name

of the flower of Nemea; and after him another will reign,

a silver-headed man; and he will have the name of a sea;

he will be an all-excellent man and will understand all things.

And in your time, all-excellent, most preeminent, dark-haired one,

and under your branches these days will endure through all time.

After him three will rule, and the third will hold sway late.

I, thrice-wretched, am exhausted to place an evil utterance in my heart,

the companion of Isis, and the inspired hymn of oracles.

First, around the foundation of your much-lamented temple

maenads will rush, and in wicked hands

you will be on that day, whenever the Nile travels over

the whole land of Egypt up to sixteen cubits,

so as to inundate all the earth and water it with its streams;

and the charm of the land and the glory of its appearance will be silenced.

Memphis, you indeed will weep most greatly for Egypt;

for you, who formerly held mighty sway over the land, will become

wretched, so that the Thunderer himself will cry aloud

from heaven with a loud voice: 'Mighty Memphis,

who of old boasted most greatly among wretched mortals,

you will weep, grievously distressed and all-ill-fated, so as to recognize

the eternal, immortal God himself in the clouds.

Where is the mighty pride that was fashioned for you among mortals?

Because you raged furiously against my anointed children

and incited wickedness against the righteous men,

you will have such a nurse in retribution for so many deeds.

No longer will there visibly be any divine right for you among the blessed;

you have fallen from the stars, you will not ascend into heaven.'

These things God bade to be proclaimed against Egypt,

in the last time, when men will be utterly evil.

Yet the wicked suffer wretchedly, awaiting the evil reward,

the wrath of the immortal, loud-thundering Heavenly One,

and worshiping stones and wild beasts instead of God,

fearing exceedingly many different things hither and thither, which have no reason,

no mind, no hearing—things not even lawful for me to speak of—

each of the idols, made by the hands of mortals.

And out of their own toils and reckless inventions

men accepted gods of wood and of stone,

and of bronze and gold and silver, vain,

lifeless, deaf, and smelted in fire;

they made them in vain, putting their trust in such things.

Thmuis and Xois are afflicted and stricken by the counsel

of Herakles, and of Zeus, and of Hermes.

And you too, Alexandria, famed nurse of cities,

war will not leave you, nor . . .

you will pay for your arrogance, for all that you did before.

You will be silent for a long age, and the day of return—

and no longer will a luxurious drink flow for you . . .

For a Persian will come upon your soil like hail,

and he will destroy your land and deceitful people,

with blood and corpses beside dreadful altars,

a savage-minded, mighty, bloody man, raging madly,

rushing with a sand-like multitude to your destruction.

And then, city of great wealth, you will have suffered much.

All Asia will weep for the sake of the gifts from you,

with which she crowned her head and rejoiced, falling upon the ground.

And he who received the land of the Persians will make war,

and killing every man he will ravage their whole livelihood,

so that a third portion remains for wretched mortals.

And he himself will fly in from the west with a light leap,

besieging the whole earth, laying all desolate.

But when he possesses mighty height and dreadful daring,

he will come wanting also to sack the city of the blessed.

And then a king sent from God against him

will destroy all the great kings and noble men.

Then thus will judgment come upon mortals by the Immortal One.

Alas for you, wretched heart! Why do you incite me

to declare these things to Egypt, a grievous rule of many?

Go toward the east, to the senseless race of the Persians,

and declare to them the present and what is about to be.

The stream of the river Euphrates will bring a flood,

and will destroy Persians and Iberians and Babylonians,

and the Massagetae who love war and trust in their bows.

All Asia, consumed by fire, will blaze as far as the islands.

Pergamum, once venerable, will perish in clusters,

and Pitane will appear utterly desolate among mortals.

All Lesbos will sink into the deep abyss so as to be destroyed.

Smyrna, rolling down the crags, will one day weep;

she who was once venerable and renowned will perish utterly.

Bithynians will weep for their land turned to ash,

and great Syria and populous Phoenicia.

Alas for you, Lycia, how many evils the sea devises against you,

assaulting of its own accord upon the woeful land,

so as to submerge with an evil earthquake and bitter waters

the dry land of Lycia, unperfumed, which was once sweet-scented.

There shall also be terrible wrath for Phrygia because of grief,

on account of which Rhea, daughter of Zeus, came and remained there.

The sea will destroy the race of the Tauri and the barbarian nation;

and it will strike down the Lapiths to the ground.

A river of deep eddies will destroy the Thessalian land,

Peneus of deep streams, sweeping the shapes of wild beasts from the earth,

Epidanus claiming that it once brought forth forms of wild beasts.

Poets will bewail thrice-wretched Hellas,

when from Italy one strikes the tendon of the isthmus,

the great king of great Rome, a godlike man,

whom, they say, Zeus himself and queenly Hera begot;

who, with all-musical voice singing honey-sweet hymns

while applauding in theaters, will destroy many along with his wretched mother.

A fearful and shameless ruler will flee from Babylon,

whom all mortals and noble men abhor;

for he destroyed many and laid hands upon the womb,

he sinned against wives, and was sprung from defiled folk.

And he will come to the Medes and to the kings of the Persians,

whom he first desired and upon whom he bestowed renown,

lurking with these evil men against the true nation;

who seized the divinely built temple and burned the citizens,

the people entering it, whom I have justly praised in song;

for when he appeared, the whole creation was shaken,

and kings perished, and among those in whom rule remained,

they destroyed both the great city and the righteous people.

But when a great star shines forth from the fourth year,

which alone will bring down the whole earth for the sake of honor,

which they first dedicated to marine Poseidon,

a great star will come from heaven into the divine sea

and burn the deep sea and Babylon itself

and the land of Italy, on whose account many perished,

holy, faithful Hebrews and the true people.

You shall suffer evils among mortal evils,

but you will remain utterly desolate for all ages hereafter,

[it shall be, but it will remain utterly desolate forever,]

hating your own soil, because you yearned for sorcery;

adulteries are found with you and unlawful union with boys,

effeminate and unjust, evil city, most ill-fated of all.

Alas, utterly unclean city of the Latin land,

frenzied Maenad rejoicing in vipers, you shall sit as a widow beside the banks,

and the river Tiber will weep for you, his consort,

you who have a bloodthirsty heart and an impious mind.

Did you not know what God can do, and what he devises?

Rather, you said: 'I am alone, and no one will sack me.'

Now the ever-existing God will destroy you and all yours,

and no longer will there be any sign of you in that land,

as of old, when the great God found your honors.

Remain alone, lawless one, and mingled with blazing fire,

inhabit the Tartarean, lawless realm in Hades.

And now again, Egypt, I lament your ruin:

Memphis, you will be the leader in troubles, smitten in your sinews;

in you the pyramids will utter a shameless voice.

Python, which of old was justly called the twin city,

be silent forever, so that you may cease from wickedness.

Insolence, treasury of evil troubles, much-lamenting maenad,

dire-suffering, full of tears, you will remain a widow forever.

For many years you alone were ruling the world.

But when Barke puts on the tunic

of white over the filthy, may I neither exist nor come to be.

O Thebes, where is your great strength? A savage man

will destroy the people; and you, having put on dark garments,

will lament alone, wretched one, and will pay for everything,

whatever you did before, having a shameless soul.

And they will see wailing because of lawless deeds.

And may a great man of the Ethiopians destroy Syene;

dark-skinned Indians will inhabit Teucheira by force.

Pentapolis, you will weep; and a man of great might will destroy you.

Who will recount your ruins, all-weeping Libya?

And who among mortals will weep piteously for you, Cyrene?

You will not cease from hateful lamentation until the time of destruction.

There will be among the Brygi and among the Gauls rich in gold

a roaring ocean filled with much blood;

for they themselves worked evil against the children of God,

when a Phoenician king led for the Sidonians a great Gallic

multitude out of Syria; and he will slaughter you,

even you, Ravenna, and will lead you to slaughter.

Do not be confident, Indians and high-spirited Ethiopians;

for when the wheel of the Pole-Axis, Capricorn,

and Taurus in Gemini encircle the mid-heaven,

and Virgo ascending, and the Sun fastening around his forehead

the all-encompassing belt, exercises sway,

there will be a great heavenly conflagration over the earth,

and a new nature among the warring stars, so that

the whole land of the Ethiopians will perish in fire and groanings.

Mourn also, Corinth, the mournful ruin within you;

for when the three sister Fates, spinning with twisted threads,

shall lead aloft him who fled by deceit beside the ridge of the Isthmus,

until all behold him,

the one who once cut through the rock with forged bronze;

and he will destroy and cut down your land, as has been ordained.

For God gave him power to do

such things as no one of all the previous kings ever did;

first, tearing up the roots from three heads with a blow,

and having greatly established it, he would give it to others to partake of,

so that they eat the flesh of the parents of the impure king.

For murder and terrors lie in store for all humankind

on account of the great city and the righteous people

which is preserved forever, which Providence held preeminent.

Unstable and ill-counseled one, encompassed by evil dooms,

beginning of toil and great end for humankind,

of creation harmed and again preserved by the Fates,

insolence, originator of evils and great bane to mortals,

who among mortals longed for you? Who was not grieved within?

In you a certain king perished, cast down from a revered life.

You arranged all things evilly and inundated all with evil,

and through you the fair folds of the cosmos were changed.

Perhaps you cast these last things forth into our strife:

How and what do you say? I will persuade you, and whatever I blame you for, I speak:

There was once among mortals a bright splendor of the sun,

a sown beam sharing the covenant of the prophets;

a tongue dripping honey, a noble drink for all mortals,

it shone forth and brought forth and caused gentle things to rise for all.

For this reason, narrow-minded originator of greatest evils,

both sword and mourning shall come on that day.

Beginning of toil and great end for humankind,

of creation harmed and again preserved by the Fates,

hear the bitter, ill-sounding report, you bane to men.

But whenever the Persian land desists from war,

from pestilence, and from groaning, then on that day shall be

the divine and heavenly race of the blessed Judeans,

who dwell around the city of God in the interior;

and having encircled a great wall as far as Joppa,

they are lifted high, even up to the dark clouds.

No longer will the trumpet pipe its war-clamoring sound,

nor will they perish any longer by hostile, raging hands,

but he will set up trophies over evils for all eternity.

And there will come again from heaven a certain preeminent man,

who stretched out his hands upon the fruitful tree,

the best of the Hebrews, who will one day stop the sun,

having called out with a noble utterance and pure lips.

No longer distress the soul within your breast, blessed one,

divine-born, all-wealthy, only-longed-for flower,

good light and revered end, pure longed-for object,

graceful Judea, beautiful city, inspired with hymns.

No longer will the unclean foot of the Greeks

revel throughout your land, bearing a lawless mind in their breasts;

but glorious children will honor you around,

and with holy music they will set the table

with sacrifices of every kind and with prayers honoring God.

As many as endured toils out of meager affliction,

the righteous will rule over greater, charming, and noble things;

while the wicked, having sent an unlawful tongue up toward the sky,

will cease speaking against one another,

and will hide themselves until the cosmos is transformed.

And there shall be a shower of blazing fire from the clouds;

and mortals shall no longer reap the splendid ear of corn from the earth;

all things shall remain unsown and unplowed, until mortal men

acknowledge God, the immortal and eternal Ruler of all,

and no longer honor mortal things,

nor glorify dogs and vultures, which Egypt introduced,

with empty mouths and foolish lips.

Only for the pious will the holy land bear all these things:

a stream of honey dripping from rock and spring,

and ambrosial milk shall flow for all the righteous;

for they hoped in one God, the Father, who alone is supreme,

possessing great piety and faith.

But why indeed does my wise mind entrust these things to me?

Now, wretched Asia, I lament piteously for you

and the race of Ionians, Carians, and gold-rich Lydians.

Woe to you, Sardis! Woe, much-beloved Tralles!

Woe, Laodicea, beautiful city! How you shall perish,

destroyed by earthquakes and turned into dust!

In dark Asia [and of the gold-rich Lydians]—

the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, firmly fixed,

shall one day plunge headlong into the divine sea

through chasms and earthquakes, just as storms overwhelm ships.

And Ephesus, prostrate, shall wail, weeping by the shore

and seeking her temple that is inhabited no more.

And then, enraged, the imperishable God dwelling in the ether

shall hurl a hurricane from heaven upon the head of the unholy.

And on that day summer shall take the place of winter.

And then, thereafter, it shall befall mortal men;

for the High Thunderer shall utterly destroy all the shameless

with thunders and lightnings and blazing thunderbolts,

against hostile men, and he shall destroy the impious,

so that the corpses remaining upon the earth will outnumber the sand.

For Smyrna too shall come weeping for her lawgiver

to the gates of Ephesus, and she herself will perish even more.

And foolish Cyme, with her divinely inspired streams,

cast into the hands of godless, unjust, and lawless men,

shall no longer advance her chariot so high into the ether,

but will remain dead among the waters of Cyme.

And then they shall groan aloud together as they await their misery.

The harsh people and shameless tribe of the Cymaeans

shall know the sign they bear in return for the things they suffered.

Then, when they wail over the wretched earth turned to ash,

Lesbos shall be destroyed forever by Eridanus.

Woe to you, Corcyra, beautiful city! Cease your revelry.

And Hierapolis, the only land joined with Pluto,

you shall have the mournful place you longed to have,

buried in the earth beside the streams of Thermodon.

And rocky Tripolis, beside the waters of the Maeander,

allotted to the shore beneath nighttime waves,

this providence of God shall one day utterly destroy you.

lest against my will I seize the neighbor land of Phoebus;

a whirlwind from above will one day destroy luxurious Miletus,

because she chose the deceitful song of Phoebus

and the wise practice and prudent counsel of men.

Be gracious, All-Begetter, to the delicate, fruitful land,

great Judea, that we may behold your purposes.

For this land first you recognized, O God, in favors,

so that it seemed your gracious gift to all mortals

to exist and take heed of what God bestowed.

Thrice-wretched, I long to see the works of the Thracians

and the wall between two seas dragged in the dust by Ares,

swept like a river into the fish-filled deep.

Wretched Hellespont, a child of Assyrians will one day yoke you,

and battle against you will destroy the mighty strength of the Thracians.

An Egyptian king will capture Macedonia,

and a barbarian region will cast down the power of rulers.

Lydians and Galatians, Pamphylians together with Pisidians,

armed in full force, will prevail in evil strife.

Thrice-wretched Italy, you will remain utterly desolate and unwept

in a flourishing land, to perish like a destructive beast.

And the broad sky of the upper air will be above,

a roaring like thunder, to hear the voice of God;

the unquenchable flames of the sun itself will be no more,

nor will the bright light of the moon exist again

in the last time, when God shall reign.

All things will be blackened, and darkness will be over the earth,

and mortals blind, and evil beasts, and misery.

That day will last a long time, so that they perceive

the Lord God himself, all-surveying, high in heaven.

Then he himself will have no pity on hostile men,

who sacrifice herds of lambs and sheep and loud-bellowing bulls

and great calves with gilded horns

to lifeless Hermes-statues and stone gods.

Let divine law, wisdom, and the glory of the righteous lead;

lest the imperishable God, moved to anger, destroy

the whole race of men, livelihood, and the shameless generation;

one must love God the Father, wise and ever-existing.

In the last time, near the end of the moon,

there will be a world-crazed war, stealthy in its deceit.

And a matricidal man will come from the ends of the earth,

a fugitive, meditating sharp designs in his mind,

who will conquer every land and master all things,

and understand all things more prudently than all people;

and that very city for whose sake he himself was ruined, he will seize at once.

He will destroy many men and great tyrants,

and burn them all, as no one else ever did,

and in turn raise up the cowering through zeal.

A great war will come upon mortals from the west,

and blood will flow up to the bank of deep-eddying rivers.

Wrath will drip upon the plains of Macedonia—

and will give an alliance from the west, but destruction to the king.

And then a wintry blast will blow over the earth,

and the plain will again be filled with evil war.

For fire will rain down from heavenly floors upon mortals,

fire and blood, water, thunderbolt, gloom, heavenly night,

and destruction in war, and a mist over the slaughters;

and it will destroy all kings together and noble men.

Then in this way the pitiful destruction of war will cease,

and no longer will anyone fight with swords or with iron,

nor with missiles themselves, which will no longer be lawful.

And the wise people that was left will have peace,

having experienced evil so that they might rejoice hereafter.

Matricides, cease from audacity and wicked daring,

you who of old impurely procured the bed of boys

and set up in brothels prostitutes who were formerly pure,

with outrages, punishment, and laborious shame.

For in you a mother was lawlessly united with her child,

and a daughter was joined as a bride to her own father;

in you also kings defiled their ill-fated mouth;

in you also wicked men found copulation with beasts.

Be silent, utterly mournful, wicked city, keeping revel;

for no longer beside you, with nourishing wood,

will virgin maidens tend the divine fire.

Extinguished by you is the house long longed for,

when for the second time I saw the Temple cast down,

hurled headlong, steeped in fire by an impure hand,

the house ever flourishing, the sanctuary guarding God,

brought forth from the holy ones and being forever imperishable,

hoped for from the soul and body itself.

For not carelessly does it praise God from the unseen earth,

nor did a skilled craftsman make a stone god among them,

nor was golden adornment worshipped, a delusion of souls;

but the great Begetter, God of all divinely inspired beings,

they honored with holy sacrifices and hecatombs.

And now a certain obscure and impure king went up

and threw it down and left it unbuilt,

with a great multitude and illustrious men.

And he himself perished when he set foot upon the land from the immortal earth,

and no longer was such a sign wrought among men

so that others seemed to sack the great city.

For a blessed man came from the heavenly heights,

holding a scepter in his hands, which God gave to him,

and he ruled well over all, and restored to all

the good the wealth which former men had taken.

And every city he took from its foundations with much fire,

and burned the peoples of mortals who previously worked evil;

and the city that God longed for, this he made

brighter than stars and sun and moon,

and he established an adornment, and made a holy . . .

incarnate, fair, and exceedingly beautiful, and fashioned it

a great and boundless tower spanning many stades,

touching the very clouds and visible to all,

so that all the faithful and all the righteous may behold

the glory of the eternal God, the longed-for form;

the east and the west have sung the glory of God.

For no longer are there terrors for wretched mortals,

nor adulteries and unlawful lust with boys,

nor murder nor din of battle, but among all strife is righteous.

This is the final time of the holy ones, when these things are accomplished

by high-thundering God, the founder of the greatest temple.

Alas for you, Babylon, golden-throned, golden-sandaled,

ancient queen holding sway over the world alone,

once great and a city of many people, you will no longer lie

among golden mountains and the streams of the Euphrates;

you will be laid low by the upheaval of an earthquake. And terrible Parthians

made you rule all things. Keep your mouth muzzled, impure

race of the Chaldeans, and neither inquire nor be anxious

how you will rule the Persians or how you will dominate the Medes;

for on account of your rule which you held, sending hostages

to Rome, and those serving as thralls in Asia,

therefore, though thinking yourself queen, you yourself will come into judgment

before adversaries for whose sake you sent ransoms;

and instead of crooked words you will give a bitter reckoning to your enemies.

And in the final time the sea will one day be dry,

and ships will no longer sail to Italy then;

and great Asia will then be all-bearing water,

and Crete a plain. Cyprus will suffer great misery,

and Paphos will bewail a dreadful fate, so that even

Salamis, that great city, will be perceived having suffered great misery;

now again it will be barren dry land upon the shore,

and no few locusts will utterly destroy the Cyprian land.

Looking toward Tyre, you will weep, ill-fated mortals.

Phoenicia, terrible wrath awaits you, until you fall

in a wretched ruin, so that Sirens truly will lament you.

And it will be in the fifth generation, when the destruction of Egypt

will cease, when shameless kings will be mingled together;

and generations of Pamphylians will settle in Egypt,

and in Macedonia and in Asia and among the Lycians

there will be a world-maddening, bloody war in the dust,

which the king of Rome and the rulers of the west will bring to an end.

Whenever the wintry, snowy blast drips

as the great river and the greatest lakes freeze over,

immediately a barbarian horde will march into the land of Asia,

and will destroy the race of terrible Thracians as though powerless.

And then soul-devouring mortals will eat their parents,

consumed by hunger, and will greedily gulp down their food.

And wild beasts will eat the food from the table of every home,

and they themselves and birds will devour all mortals,

and the ocean will be filled with evil from war,

bloody with the flesh and blood of the foolish.

Then there shall be such feebleness over the earth,

that one could discern the number of men and the measure of women.

And a wretched generation shall lament countless times at the end

of the setting sun, so that it may never rise again,

having remained in the waters of Ocean to be submerged;

for it saw the unholy wickednesses of many mortals.

And there will be a moonless gloom around great heaven itself,

and no small mist shall cover the folds of the cosmos

a second time. But thereafter the light of God will guide

the good men, as many as have sung hymns to God.

Isis, thrice-wretched goddess, you shall remain by the waters of the Nile

alone, a speechless maenad upon the sands of Acheron,

and no longer will memory of you remain throughout all the earth.

And you, Sarapis, who sit upon many unworked stones,

shall lie as a greatest ruin in thrice-wretched Egypt.

And all those of Egypt who directed desire toward you

shall bitterly weep for you, having considered you an immortal god in their minds;

as many as praised God will recognize that you are nothing.

And one of the priests, a linen-robed man, will say:

"Come, let us establish a beautiful precinct of the true God;

come, let us change the dreadful custom of our ancestors,

for the sake of which they performed processions and initiations

to gods of stone and earthenware, having no understanding.

Let us turn our souls, hymning the immortal God,

the Begetter himself, who is eternal,

the ruler of all, the true one, the King,

the soul-nourishing Father, the great God who exists forever."

And then in Egypt there shall be a great, holy temple,

and into it a God-fashioned people shall bring sacrifices,

and to them the immortal God will grant life.

But when the shameless tribes of Triballi abandon their land,

and the Ethiopians are about to cultivate their own Egypt,

they shall begin wickedness, so that all the latter things may come to pass.

For they will pull down the great temple of the Egyptian land;

and God will rain down terrible wrath upon the earth against them,

so as to destroy all the wicked and all the lawless.

And no longer will there be any sparing in that land,

because they did not keep what God had entrusted to them.

I saw the threat of the shining Sun among the stars,

and the terrible wrath of the Moon in the lightnings;

the stars travailed with battle, and God permitted them to fight.

For in place of the Sun long flames were waging strife,

and the two-horned rush of the Moon was altered;

the Morning Star engaged in battle, mounting the back of Leo;

Capricorn struck the tendon of the young Taurus;

and Taurus snatched away Capricorn's day of return.

And Orion removed Libra so that it remained no longer;

Virgo changed the lot of Gemini in Aries;

the Pleiad shone no longer, and Draco refused its belt;

Pisces penetrated into the girdle of Leo;

Cancer did not hold his ground, for he feared Orion;

Scorpio raised his tail against the dread Leo,

and the Dog slipped away from the flame of the Sun;

and the fury of mighty Phaenon set Aquarius ablaze.

Heaven itself arose, until it shook off the combatants;

and in its wrath it cast them headlong to the earth.

Swiftly struck down into the baths of Ocean,

they set the whole earth on fire; and the sky remained starless.