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Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, physician, and reputed seer who lived from 1503 to 1566. He is best known today for his book Les Propheties, a collection of 942 quatrains (four-line poems) published in 1555, which many believe predict future events.
His major work, Les Propheties, was written in Middle French and Latin. It is divided into "centuries" (groups of 100 quatrains, though not all are complete). Many of these verses are vague and open to multiple interpretations, which is part of why they have remained famous.
Nostradamus allegedly used a form of scrying (gazing into a bowl of water or mirror) combined with astrological calculations. He drew from classical sources like the Bible, Livy, and Pliny the Elder, as well as occult traditions such as Hermeticism and Kabbalah.
Quatrain I.35:
Le lyon jeune le vieux surmontera,
En champ bellique par singulier duelle:
Dans cage d'or les yeux lui crevera,
Deux classes une, puis mourir mort cruelle.
The young lion will overcome the older one,
On the field of combat in a single fight;
He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,
Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.
In 1559, King Henry II of France died in a jousting accident. A younger opponent, Count Montgomery, shattered his lance, and a splinter pierced Henry's eye and skull through the visor ("golden cage") of his helmet. He died after ten days of suffering.
