REMINDER: Most of Nostradamus's verse-explanations in the 'Orus Apollo', as translated by him from earlier Latin and possibly Greek versions, have little or nothing to do with the REAL meanings of Egyptian hieroglyphs, as first deciphered in 1822 from the Rosetta stone by Jean-François Champollion in the wake of Napoleon's celebrated expedition to Egypt of 1798.
The 'Hieroglyphica' was a manuscript written by one Horus Apollo of Menuthis, near Alexandria, in around AD 480-490, some two centuries after the true meaning of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs had been irretrievably forgotten. It was supposed to explain the meanings of some 182 of them, but in fact succeeded only in perpetuating a number of old wives' tales about them that had accrued in the meantime, and that then persisted until Champollion finally managed to decipher them in 1822 with the aid of the Rosetta Stone, now in the British Museum, London.
The original may have been in Egyptian of a sort, but was subsequently translated into Greek and then into Latin. Retranslated into French, Italian, German and English, it was commented on by Ficino, Erasmus and Rabelais. The artists Dürer, Mantegna and Raphael all drew inspiration from it.
Various Latin editions appeared beteween 1530 and 1542, not least from two publishers associated directly or indirectly with Nostradamus (Kerver of Paris and Gryphius of Lyon). Nostradamus's contribution was to contribute an extremely free French translation *in verse*, based on Jean Mercier's Latin-Greek version of 1551, at some point prior to 1555, when the Princess of Navarre became Queen. He also added some ten original pieces of his own. The paper has been analysed, and found to date from 1535-1539, apparently from somewhere in Provence.
The fact that Nostradamus failed to comment in any way on what it said - other than in his Prologue - suggests that he simply accepted its conclusions. Some echoes of its symbolism seem to be present in the Sixains.
An edited version of the French text can be found at
http://www.astrologer.ru:8001/Nostradamiana/horapollo/texte.html
Part of the first page of the manuscript, evidently in Nostradamus's own hand, once owned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's chief finance minister, and currently in the Paris National Library (manuscript No. 2594), can be found on Jean Guernon's site at
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/Nosty/index.html
Umberto Eco writes (courtesy of Bri):
"We now know that this text is a late Hellenistic compilation, dating from as late as the fifth century A.D.. Although certain passages
indicate that the author did possess exact information about Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Hieroglyphica seem to be based on some texts written few centuries before. Horapollo was describing a writing system whose last example is on the Theodosius temple (394 A.D.). Even if these inscriptions were still similar to those elaborated three thousand years before, the Egyptian language in the V century had radically changed. Thus, when Horapollo wrote his text, the key to understanding hieroglyphs had long been lost.
"The hieroglyphic writing is - as everybody knows - undoubtedly composed, in part, of iconic signs: some are easily recognizable, such as eagle, owl, bull, snake, eye, foot, man seated with cup in hand; others are stylized-- the hoisted sail, the almond-like shape for a mouth, the serrated line for water."
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"ORUS APOLLO, SON OF OSIRIS, KING OF EGYPT OF THE NILE
Hieroglyphic Notes - Two Books - Put Into Epigrammatical Verse.
A Work of Incredible and Admirable Erudition and Antiquity.
by Michel Nostradamus of St Remy de Provence [note in another hand]
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"Prologue by the translator to Madame the Princess of Navarre
[transliteration of first few lines - note total lack of accents or punctuation]
Nature saige, mere de sympathie
Par faictz contraires ce rend anthipathie
Aiant trouve l'ame par sa concorde
Et la destruyre apres par sa discorde
Comme il me semble chose bien necessaire
Descripre ung peu si se profond mistere
Mesmes les choses passant l'engin humain
le n'ay traduict ces deux livres en vain
Mais pour monstrer a gens laborieux
Que aux bones letres se rendent studieux
Des secretz puissent scavoir lutilite
Qua plusieurs notes comprinse est verite
Que quand le docte aura veu mon prologue
Mesmes des cas secretz faict philologue
Ont se pourroit quelque peu merveilher
Comme nature advoit peu travailher
Cas diferentz surpassant sens humain
Que Epaphus mit exact de sa main
Aiant de Memphys trouves les caratheres
Car ilz en feurent les premiers inventayres
Donc je vouidrois scavoir qui est la cause
Que l'elephant furieux bouger nause
Se rend souafve par le voir du mouton
Et sesfrayer sil voit en ung quanton,
Ou bien la voix d'ung jeusne couchon nai...
Freeish English verse translation of whole Prologue:
"As wise old nature, sympathy's true mother
By antipathy makes the facts quite other,
And having touched man's soul with her concord
Doth then destroy it after, by discord,
So it doth surely needful seem to me
To write somewhat of this deep mystery,
Even those things that pass the human brain.
"I have not rendered these two books in vain,
But to show those who labour hard to know
That to good books they should more studious go.
Of secrets thus they'll know the usefulness
Whose notes, once noted, do the truth confess,
For when the learnèd shall my prologue see
Of hidden lore philologists they'll be,
And capable to marvel quite a whit
How nature works somewhat as it befit,
And know those facts no man can understand
Which Epaphus writ clearly in his hand,
Having of Memphis found each sacred sign
Whose inventory they did first define.
"Thus would I know the reason and the cause
Why angry elephants daren't move their paws
And soothèd are when sheep they do behold
Yet frightened are to see within their fold
A little piglet, or its voice to hear:
Than men condemned to death they're more in fear!
Then there's the savage bull who just gives in
When tied to tree or branch, however thin,
While mighty horses cower before the whip
Whom the wolf's jaws have only just let slip
And fly along as lightly as a bird.
And when you eat the flesh (you must have heard!)
Of any beast that wolves do make their prey,
How tasty! Yet the wool you take away
All kinds of fleas and vermin doth beget.
Again a horse will soon deteriorate
If where a wolf oft passes it doth walk.
Yet if on thorns the wolf should chance to stalk
Quite suddenly quite weak it would become.
The crafty, then, knowing that he doth come,
For fear of him, will strew thorns in the stall.
Yet e'en if man by glowworm light at all
Should wolf espy, he'll make him imbecile
And weak as water, and his voice shall steal.
In fact if man sees wolf in any way
it gets so mad it goes right off its prey.
It weakens lions and their ire provokes
If they should walk on leaves of holly oaks:
They fear the cock, and when they hear it crow
For fear of it away will quickly go.
And if hyena should by nature hap
(Which nature hereinafter I'll recap)
To walk within a doggy's shade at night -
What time the slanting moon doth take its flight
And mount in beauty, sudden, up the air
As if it climbed a rope suspended there -
And it if sees a man or dog asleep
Will stretch, and make the sleeper's body creep;
And if its shadow twice as big it sees,
Disturb the sleeper through its great increase
And rend, enraged, the man who once was whole -
Yet from his hands will feed as from a bowl;
And if it sees its shadow short and brief
Will suddenly get up and quickly ... leave.
"Do but with both hands hold your tongue in fee
And you'll be eloquent as Mercury
And safe from dogs and hounds of any ilk
As though they puppies were, and soft as silk.
Another thing, before I let it pass -
Do but a crayfish wrap around with grass
(The 'polypodes quercus' I should say)
And all its legs and scales will fall away.
"The little bat that builds its nest in rock,
If it smells ivy-wood, will die of shock.
Vultures will die if ointment they should smell
And snakes if they touch anyone at all
Or if with leaves of oak you deck them o'er,
Strong though the night-wind in the ash-trees roar.
A snake, once snatched up by a stork on high
And dropped, no more will wander till it die.
And if the common viper once is hit
With stick, and sees that it is trapped by it
And then recovers all its strength again -
If next the female now with might and main
You strike with any hedgerow branch that's there,
You'll see her fly up straightway in the air.
The tortoise, too, gets ill if it should taste
The flesh of snake, and looks about in haste
For marjoram, and with that herb's assistance
Obtains both health and pleasure and resistance.
And, too, the stork protects its nest, they say,
With plane-tree leaves to keep the bats away,
While swallows smear with mud their little nest
Lest other birds should ever them molest.
And the ring-dove or pigeon of the wood
Puts laurel in its nest and finds it good,
While hobbies of the predatory kind
Into their nests wild lettuce seek to bind.
One bat protects its young with ivy-leaves
While crow pure wool about its crowlets weaves.
The hoopoe amianthus doth instal
And sometimes eats strange birds, feathers and all.
As for the rook, it often likes to eat
Vervain; and larks all kinds of grass and wheat.
And any nest that's made with such a herb
'Gainst colic is a remedy superb.
Other great cases I disdain to quote -
The partridge that on onion stalks doth dote,
The thrush on myrtle, herons crayfish too:
The eagle with its seaweed, as is due.
Much else as well which wise old nature does
We'll see from what th'Egyptians left to us.
God and his world, his seas, his earth below,
Wild beasts and tame ones, too, we'll see on show.
And other cases wonderful I'll cite -
Sea, forest, fields and places that delight."
Orus Apollo - Cumulative translation of main text (Book 1) - 1
Translation copyright (c) Peter Lemesurier 1999 -- Peter Lemesurier
THE FIRST BOOK OF ORUS APOLLO OF THE NILE OF EGYPT - 1
Hieroglyphic notes put into verse in the form of epigrams
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How they signified Eternity
For time or for eternity immense
They did depict the moon or else the sun -
Which planets twain of time are elements -
Nor of infinity the sign did shun.
In shining gold they causèd to be done
The basilisk that with its tail so tight
Its body in a circle covers quite.
With edge of gold this circle they decked out,
Painted and formed it to impress the sight.
Their gods with serpents they did gird about.
What the Basilisk serpent denoted
Th' Egyptians did withal the serpent use
To signify of age the passing time,
Of which three species represent three views.
While some the death do die, shall fear no crime
Th' immortal whose sheer facial paradigm
Breathes death to others who are mortal made
And subject are to life and death and time.
Far, far above the gods he is portrayed.
How they represented the world
Wishing the world to show and venerate
They paint a snake with divers scales indent
Who clearly would his own tail masticate
And by his shape the world would represent.
This creature is by nature crude and bent,
Yet in its size imposing as you wish,
Like unto earth, as smooth as any fish,
That every year doth change its state and skin,
Thus ever staying young, year out, year in.
So, too, the world: and when its body it
Would fain consume, the act of God, they say
Makes weak and strong alike from out of it
Who all would fail if it should pass away.
How they signified the year
Wishing to show us how the year to write
They painted ISIS, queen and goddess too,
Who for th' Egyptians was a planet bright -
Called in their language Sothis, it is true -
Whom as ASTROMYON the Grecians knew.
Over all others strong and masterly
Now big, now small she's sometimes seen to be,
Shedding her light when first she doth appear,
And by her rising one can oft foresee
What future times shall surely summon near.
How they otherwise signified the year
Nor did their wisdom vainly give it name
Calling it ISIS as they spoke of it.
For otherwise the sense thereof to claim
Of Egypt's year, as does the name befit,
The palm they painted, whose antique remit
Of all earth's trees exceeded any yet.
Each moon another branch it doth beget
So that in twelve months twelve of them appear
Each sprouting green, and verdantly beset,
Producing one for each month of the year.
Notes on the Figure of Isis for representing her
other than she is, according to the most ancient
descriptions
[translated from Nostradamus's quoted Latin]
'For all its beauty we are pleased to set
What in blest Araby* has been undecked
As writers numerous have passed to us.
For it doth seem in Nisa, Araby,
Of ISIS and OSIRIS are the tombs
Whose columns each are carved with sacred scripts,
And that of Isis reads as now doth follow:
* [see V.55]
[Nostradamus's Latin transcription, translated below, is full of
technical errors]:
"I am Isis Queen of Egypt, educated by Mercury.
What I have laid down in laws.
Let none dissolve.
I am the mother of Osiris**.
I am the the discoverer of the first of fruits.
I am the mother of king Horus.
I am resplendent in the Dog Star.
The city of Bubastis was established by me.
Rejoice, rejoice, O Egypt who hast nourished me!"
[** Other versions have 'uxor' = 'wife'].
'The horns of Isis are added.
[Nostradamus now continues in French...]
'The ancients added horns to the head in the form of a half-crescent,
each horn opposite to the other, because of the aspect of the moon
that appears in its first days, and for this reason it has to be so
represented.
[The French verse-translations continue]
Interpretation of the epigram
(Dixain)
I Isis am who once was Egypt's queen
What I by law did once by statute give
(For I by Mercury long taught have been)
Shall no one ever trample while he live.
Dam of Osiris who his life did give
Am I; the first of fruits I did create;
Of royal Horus mother was and mate.
On starry Procyon I shine my rays:***
Bubastis I once founded in my state.
Joy, joy in Egypt, who did once me raise!
[*** Wrong constellation - Canis Minor instead of Canis Major - but
possibly Nostradamus realised this when he wrote it.]
[Comparison of this with the prose text above gives a fair idea of
Nostradamus's own approach to verse-translation!]
How they signified the month
Wishing for us the month to signify
They paint a branch of palm all fresh and green
Or else the moon that upside-down doth fly -
The branch because of what above we've seen,
The moon aloft, for it perceiving thus
When this occurs its fifteen parts remain,
With horns turned downward over us again.
And when its form becomes occulted, soon
Its thirtieth part once more the light shall gain
Till down again shall point the hornèd moon...
How they signify the following year
And when they wish to show us all in all
The year that follows, they do write withal
A quarter field whose measurements befall
A hundred cubits, quite symmetrical.
And half an hour is reckoned, in their tongue,
As quarter, their two rising stars among.
By rising of the star that's Sothis* named
The quarter part denotes a day still young.
With solar year three hundred sixty days,
Five days, five hours, if we aright but count,
Do each four quarters then depart their ways,
Which to a day each fourth time doth amount.
* Sirius
[I'm not sure that Nostradamus fully understood what he was
translating here: I'm sure I don't!]
What they meant by the eagle
When they a god in power would represent
In rank disgrace, or high and excellent,
In blood or triumph, an eagle they would paint -
A god because it is a bird potènt
Long-lived as any bird that roams the sky
And image of the sun that reigns on high,
Because the solar nature doth excel,
And o'er all birds the sun doth see full well.
For this apothecaries, sky-inspired,
Do use a herb by eagles oft required,
Whose burning eyes like rays do pierce the skies
And sun as master and as lord apprise:
Which, when applied, the power of the sight
Doth much improve, as such a product might,
Because when it would mount aloft the sky
To rise so high it takes a slanting route,
But, diving downwards, straight and true doth shoot.
[In this and the next verse, Nostradamus temporarily gives up the
struggle to maintain the complex rhyme scheme, and reverts to simple
rhyming couplets - except that for line 15 he can't manage to find a
rhyme at all!]
How they use the eagle to signify abasement
...Abasement in that, when he would descend,
No further does he then his flight extend,
But stoops straight down in sudden passage steep
From air to earth, his vigour for to keep.
The eagle also stood for excellence
Who o'er all other birds has precedence.
Blood, too, the eagle did for them portray:
Ne'er any other drink he will essay.
Victory, too - for all can see full plain
Over all other birds he has domain.
But if she beaten is by fate adverse
She lies at once upon her back reverse,
Feet to the sky, her wings upon the soil
And, thus stretched out, to save herself doth toil
And fight whatever enemy attack
So that, seeing herself reduced, aback,
She can with ease turn round and take to flight
When man pursues her with his deadly might.
[Here it is worth noting that Nostradamus, as elsewhere in the book,
offers us a *pair* of verses - thus suggesting that it is worth
looking for such pairs in the Propheties, too, albeit for the most
part widely scattered. Curiously, too, he changes from 'il' to 'elle'
at line 10 - as signified by the change from 'he' to 'she' above.
Unless it is the result of sheer muddle-headedness, I cannot suggest a
reason for this.]
How they showed the soul
Also the eagle for the soul they writ
And so did it interpret by their art.
The soul 'Baieth' they called, which then they split,
As master-name for what they split apart.
'Bai' was the soul*, and 'Eth' the beating heart*,
For heart it is encompasseth the soul,
And thus the sound of it they firmly hold
To be the soul together with it bound.
Wherefore the eagle bonds with nature's sound
As with the soul that never fades away,
Nor drinks but blood (water doth it confound),
For so the soul with blood is fed for aye.
[Nostradamus is presumably referring to the twin souls known as 'ka'
and 'ba'. The Egyptian for 'heart' was ''ib' - as apparently in
'Hor-'eb' (=heart of Horus, or heart of the sky)]
How they signified Mars and Venus
When Mars and Venus they desired to show
They painted eagles twain in comely state,
And nearby showed for each of them a crow -
Mars for the male, and Venus for his mate.
While th' other creatures all do seem to hate
This love-match, this the eagle seems to flout.
Though from the male he'll suddenly retreat
If thirty times he hear the male call out,
He almost seems his loving to entreat.
Th' Egyptians, seeing the eagle prompt to love
Her did compare with Venus' star above
And to the sun the eagle dedicate,
By virtue of her thirty acts of love
Whereby she makes the male her loving mate.
[Once again, taking advantage of the fact that in French 'aigle' can
be either masculine or feminine, there is some confusion in the verse
as to the eagle's true gender!]
Mars and Venus as otherwise painted by them
They Mars and Venus painted otherwise
By crows or rooks twain, carefully portrayed.
Female or male they showed them to our eyes,
For of each two eggs laid, so it is said,
One must be male, the other, though, instead
Female, as doth necessity recall.
But if it chances, rare as it befall,
That both eggs when they hatch do males produce,
Or females both, then nought can them induce
To join themselves with other meet females
Nor such females to any other males:
Therefrom emerge mere solitary birds.
And so if on your road you chance to meet
A crow as omen dogging both your feet,
A presage 'tis that you alone shall stay
As widow or as widower one day.
[Once again the paired verses suggest the possiblity that the
Propheties, too, may be similarly arranged, even if in that case the
pairs of verses are widely scattered.]
THE FIRST BOOK OF ORUS APOLLO OF THE NILE OF EGYPT - 2
How they denoted a wedding
When they a wedding wanted to portray,
When it might finish and when it might start,
And how reflect man's basic nature, they
Would have well painted in the finest art
And pictured there two crows or rooks (whatever) -
For nature androgyne, which once was split,
To represent the joining back together
Of Mars and Venus, as above was writ.
[for 'androgyn', compare II.45]
How they painted Vulcan
To give us Vulcan clear to understand
A scarab and a vulture they drew in
To stand for great for Minerva hidden, and
Of love the only source and origin.
By her the world's sustained through thick and thin
Without the need for males of any kind.
So we the vulture for Minerva find,
Since both these gods are, as tradition writes,
Quite different from all others of their kind,
In that they both are true hermaphrodites.
How they signified an only son
Now when they wished to show an only son,
Or father, age or generatiòn
Or human man in special form have done,
They caused to paint in great perfectiòn
A scarab by their great inventiòn.
The only son because it is begot
Without the female, such as is its lot:
When it doth please the male to make his young,
He finds the dung of ox, which when he's got
He makes into a ball of rolling dung.
How the scarab makes his ball
Then like the sky he makes it curved and round
Himself supporting by each hinder limb,
Eastwards before him rolls it o'er the ground
Using the light of dawn to vector him,
Until quite whole it is about the rim
And of the earth the roundness doth attain.
For from the east the sun the west doth gain
Then doth return to gain the east again.
The stars quite differently do move and climb,
From west to east returning over time.
[I have retranslated the last two lines rather generously, as well as
changing the rhyme-scheme slightly: Nostradamus fails to point out
that he is (apparently) talking about the way the stars appear to move
from night to night, not the way they move during any one night!]
What the scarab does with his ball
Then doth the scarab afterwards his ball
Bury for eight and twenty days in all.
No longer does he shape and mould it round
But wraps it round beside the dungy mound
And for as many days as moon aloft
Circles the thing about, and just as oft.
And during this the useless beast succeeds,
For of his kind yet other ones he breeds.
His ball he opens, throws it in the water,
Thinking that this to great conjunction leads
Between the moon and sun, or that it oughta...
[Apologies for this outrageous rhyme - as well as for my reversion to
rhyming couplets: Nostradamus in fact continues with his much more
complex and respectable rhyme-scheme. Still, you get the picture.]
Why the scarab signified procreation, father and mother
Of the round world, and of its procreation:
When that the ball is opened in the river
Of many scarabs it makes generation
And that is why the father, who's the giver,
Becomes the cause why it is opened there.
For the young scarab oweth all its birth
To him, the father, very like the earth
Another earth begets, of earthly shape,
Much like a man who knows not carnally
A woman, as his nature chance to be.
[It gets worse! I shall now skip a few verses, to conclude with a
couple of scattered ones that seem to be of direct relevance to terms
in the Propheties...]
Of Heliopolis and the second species [of scarab]
Within the City of the Sun* an image sits
Showing the god as cat with thirty toes -
A work that of the scarab, as befits,
How each month has full thirty days clear shows
As the the great sun, as everybody knows,
Its course about its circling track doth ply.
The second has two horns above its eye
As 'twere a bull devoted to the moon
Because the bull ascendant in the sky
Did Egypt crown with lunar disc right soon.
[* Compare I.8: could Nostradamus, then, really have meant Heliopolis
by his 'cité solaire' in this verse? Personally, I still suspect that
he meant Lyon, with the name's obvious solar symbolism.]
And finally, his own last verse:
How they referred to the gods of the underworld, which they
called 'manes D.M.'*
When that they wished their mighty gods infernal
To signify, a face they used to paint
Sans eyes or form, and over it external,
Two eyes spaced equally, as books acquaint.
By the two eyes they showed with wisdom quaint
How that the document the gods did mean,
And by the eyeless face a passage gain'd,
As there engraved on testaments is seen.
[Compare VIII.66. All the Roman gravestones excavated from around the
city of Glanum, just to the south of Nostradamus's birthplace of
St-Remy, bore (among other things) the inscription 'D.M.' - as did his
own tombstone. The former can still be seen in the local Musée des
Alpilles (Place Favier) to this day. It apparently stood in Latin for
'Ditis manibus', or 'In the hands of Pluto (ruler of the underworld)'
- though in the later, Christian context 'D. (O.) M.' stands for 'Dei
(Omnipotentis) Manibus', or 'In the hands of (almighty) God'. VIII.66
thus apparently refers to the discovery of an ancient tomb.]
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