I=2E43
Avant qu'avienne le changement d'empire,
Il aviendra un cas bien merveilleux,
Le champ mu=E9, le pilier de porphyre,
Mis, translat=E9 sus le rochier noilleux.
Line 3 - "le champ de bataille"
Line 4 - "rouilleux"
Verse translation
Before the Empire shall transferr=E8d be
A mighty miracle shall happen and,
The fight transformed, the shaft of porphyry
On Saxa Rubra shall in symbol stand.
The life of the Emperor Constantine the Great by classical authors such
as Socrates Scholasticus, or Eusebius in his celebrated
'Ecclesiastical History' (republished in French in the 1530s), and
in particular of his reported miraculous vision of a heavenly cross
inscribed with the words 'By this conquer' just before the battle
of Saxa Rubra on the outskirts of Rome in AD 312. As a result of
winning this vital battle against his rival Maxentius, also known as
the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he adopted Christianity and went on
to become Emperor. In consequence, the battle is widely regarded as one
of the great turning-points in Christian history. Later, in 330,
Constantine moved the Roman capital eastwards to Byzantium (which he
had already renamed 'Constantinople' in AD 324) and erected a
famous porphyry column to himself in the marketplace there. Saxa Rubra
(today Grotta Rossa) means 'red rocks':
Merlin the Magician
"As it once was so shall it be again, world without end"
[TEOTW: 27, Shelter from the Storm, 346]
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