Fourth Book
Hear, people of boastful Asia and Europe,
all the utterly true things that through the honey-voiced mouth
of our shrine I am about to prophesy;
no oracle-singer of false Phoebus, whom foolish
men called a god, and falsely proclaimed a prophet;
but of the Great God, whom the hands of men did not fashion
like mute idols carved from stone.
For he does not have as a house a stone dragged into a temple,
utterly deaf and senseless, a grievous outrage to mortals;
but one who cannot be seen from the earth or measured
by mortal eyes, not having been fashioned by mortal hand;
who, looking down upon all at once, is himself seen by no one;
whose are dark night and day and the sun,
the stars and the moon and the fish-bearing sea,
and the earth and the rivers and the mouth of ever-flowing springs,
creations for life, and rains producing both the fruit of the field
and trees, the grapevine, and the olive tree.
He drove a whip inward through my heart,
to tell mortals all that is now and all that will be hereafter,
reaching from the first generation unto the tenth,
to recount accurately; for he himself will test all things
as he fulfills them. But do you, O people, listen in all things to the Sibyl,
pouring forth true speech from a holy mouth.
Blessed among mortals upon the earth shall those be
who will love the great God, blessing him
before drinking and eating, trusting in piety;
who will reject all temples when they see them,
and altars, pointless foundations of dumb stones,
and stone images and handmade statues,
defiled with the blood of animate beings and sacrifices
of quadrupeds; but they will look to the great glory of the one God,
neither committing reckless murder nor trafficking in
stolen gain, which are the most dreadful things,
nor having shameful desire for another's bed,
[nor hateful and abominable outrage with a male].
Whose way, piety, and customs other men
will never imitate, desiring shamelessness;
instead, sneering at them with mockery and laughter,
fools in their senselessness will falsely accuse them
of whatever reckless and evil deeds they themselves commit.
For the entire race of mortal men is hard of belief. But when at last
the judgment of the world and of mortals comes, which God himself
will execute, judging the ungodly and the pious together;
and then he will send the impious under the gloom into fire,
[and then they will realize how great an impiety they committed];
but the pious will remain upon the grain-giving land,
when God gives spirit and life and grace together to them.
All these things will be fully accomplished in the tenth generation;
and now all that will happen from the first generation, these things I will speak.
First the Assyrians will rule over all mortals,
holding dominion over the world in their rule for six generations,
from the time when, because the heavenly God was wrathful,
together with cities themselves and all mortals,
the sea covered the earth when the flood burst forth.
Overthrowing them, the Medes will boast upon the thrones,
for whom there will be only two generations, during which these deeds will happen:
there will be dark night at the middle hour of day;
and the stars will fail from heaven, and the disks of the moon;
and the earth, shaken by the turmoil of a great earthquake,
will cast headlong many cities and the works of men;
and then islands will emerge from the depths of the sea.
But when the great Euphrates overflows with blood,
even then a dread battle-strife between Medes and Persians
will arise in war; and falling beneath the spears of the Persians, the Medes
will flee across the great water of the Tigris.
And the power of the Persians will be greatest over the whole world,
for whom one generation is appointed of prosperous royal rule.
And there will be evil deeds, as many as men pray to avert:
battles and slaughters, dissensions and flights,
the overthrow of towers and the ruin of cities,
when boastful Hellas sails over the broad Hellespont,
bringing grievous doom to the Phrygians and to Asia.
Moreover, into Egypt, rich in furrows and wheat-bearing,
famine and barrenness shall come as twenty revolving years
run their course, when the ear-nurturing Nile
shall hide its dark water somewhere else beneath the earth.
And a king shall come from Asia raising a great spear,
with unnumbered ships; he shall tread on foot the wet paths of the deep
and shall sail cutting through the high-crested mountain;
cowardly Asia shall receive him back as a fugitive from war.
And all wretched Sicily shall be utterly consumed
by a stream of great fire, as Etna belches forth flame;
and Croton, a great city, shall fall into a deep stream.
And there will be strife in Hellas; raging against one another,
they will cast down many cities and destroy many
in their fighting; and the strife will be evenly matched among them.
But when the race of mortal men comes to the tenth generation,
then there shall be a yoke of slavery and fear for the Persians.
Then when the Macedonians boast of their royal scepters,
afterward there shall also be an evil capture for Thebes,
and Carians shall dwell in Tyre, while the Tyrians shall perish.
And sand shall cover all Samos beneath the shores,
and Delos shall no longer be visible, and all that is of Delos shall become unseen.
And Babylon, great to look upon but small in fighting,
shall stand, fortified on useless hopes.
Macedonians shall settle Bactra, but those from Bactra
and Susa shall all flee into the land of Hellas.
It will come to pass for future generations, when silver-eddying Pyramus,
pouring forth silt upon the shore, shall reach the sacred island.
And you, Baris, shall fall, and Cyzicus, when the earth
is shaken by earthquakes and cities slide into ruin.
Upon the Rhodians too shall come an evil, the last, but the greatest.
Nor shall the power of Macedonia endure; but from the west
a great Italian war shall blossom, under which the world
shall serve, bearing a slavish yoke for the daughters of Italy.
And you, wretched Corinth, shall one day look upon your own capture.
Carthage, your tower too shall bend its knee to the ground.