CENTURIA I · QUATRAIN LXIII
The Shrinking World
Les fleurs passu00e9es diminue le monde,
Long temps la paix, terres inhabitu00e9es:
On marchera par ciel, serre, mer & onde:
Puis de nouveau les guerres suscitu00e9es.
The plagues past, the world grows smaller,
long time peace, lands left uninhabited:
men shall walk through sky, land, sea & wave:
then anew shall wars be stirred.
THE MASTER SAYS…
This quatrain relates to your present and near future. He looked into a time when the art of medicine will be much more advanced, and many epidemics will be eliminated. He names some epidemics: the black plague, smallpox, and various diseases that in his time spread quickly and killed everyone everywhere. In your time, in the twentieth century, such diseases are under control. Part of the quatrain speaks of air travel and is connected with his vision in which people travel everywhere in flying machines. Thanks to advances in technology in the sphere of travel and communication, the world has become smaller, in contrast (to other times), because it does not take much time to travel or communicate around the world. It is as quick as talking to a neighbor in the same house, so in this respect the world has become smaller. People mainly live in a state of peace. Even though after World War II there were minor conflicts, the world was not engulfed in wars that would take a large number of human lives. Later the situation will change, especially when the Antichrist appears and begins to bring unrest. He will drag the whole world into a great battle. It is precisely in this case that he listed some common things to fill out the picture. Since they seemed fantastic and impossible, it appeared to the Inquisition that he put this in to confuse them. Thus, he did not have to mask it too much.