CENTURIA IV · QUATRAIN I
The Sinking Pearl
Cela du reste de sang non espandu,
Venise quiert secours estre donne,
Apres avoir bien long temps attendu,
Cite livree au premier cornet sonne.
That of the rest of blood not spilled,
Venice seeks help to be given her,
after having waited a very long time,
city delivered at the first trumpet sounded.
THE MASTER SAYS…
Venice was in his time a great maritime state. In your time it is slowly sinking into a stagnant swamp. This quatrain marks the fall of this city, this beautiful pearl. In connection with the ongoing changes and the rise in ocean levels, most of Venice will soon be under water. This will reach a critical point especially in the 1990s, as he shows me how the water level rises and falls. They are now trying to do something to prevent the flooding. Do you think they will succeed? To some extent, but during the shift of the Earth it will be completely under water. He shows me the land, and this area is under water. I found out that in the time of Nostradamus Venice was the greatest maritime city-state in the Western world. It was powerful politically, and was also a center of active cultural life. In fact, he is definitely saddened by the fact of its flooding.