(Claude Latremouille) wrote in message news:<bmgr66$188$1@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:46:04 +0100, Peter Lemesurier
<lemesur@bengal.demon.co.uk> wrote about what
*
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 22:16:42 +0100, Gary Somai
<gary@somai.fsworld.co.uk> either wrote or (if so marked) quoted:
SNIP> *
'virtually always' = means that, when it suits my purpose, I know
of anagrams by Nostradamus which are not letter-for-letter.
Perhaps E Leoni can explain in the rules of the game what is
permissable and what is "FANTASY"
No one could rightly claim that the meaning of the quatrains is always
quite apparent. However, the common view that they either have no
meaning at all, or have a meaning so equivocal that they can be
applied to almost anything, is far from true. To a large extent, this
view has been strengthened by Nostradamus' greatest propagandists who,
in an effort to glorify his name, have twisted many prophecies to an
application for which they could never have. been intended, thus
serving only, to discredit him.
Until the 19th century, a proper understanding of the prophecies, of
Nostradamus required an enormous amount of learning including mastery
of Latin, Creek, Old French, classical and medieval geography an (1
some Provencal. In short, the reader was required to have the same
knowl-edge that Nostradamus had.
But in the last hundred years such vast strides have been taken in the
cataloguing of human knowledge in convenient reference books that
there now remains very little in the text of the prophecies that has
not been clarified, or cannot be clarified. When Le Pelletier wrote
his edition during the Second Empire, he already had many tools to
work with in compiling his Nostradamian glossary. Today we have many
more.
Nostradamus states in several places in his Preface arid Epistle that
he had deliberately obscured his prophecies and veiled them as heavily
possible. Why He did so is no mystery at all, and any reasonable
person think of many reasons: to avoid offense to the authorities of
Church and State, which might have involved his own summary
liquidation; to avoid the inconceivably wicked, not to mention
confusing, sacrilege of threatening to interfere with the fulfillment
of God's Will by disclosing it clearly in ad-vance; and perhaps also
because of every prophet's quite human desire to reduce the number of
his failures to a minimum by use of mysterious and confusing
terminology. The important question is then not why but Nostradamus
goes about this These seem to be the principal answers:
1. The innumerable glaring examples of Latin syntax seem to offer
satisfactory substantiation for the theory that the quatrains were
first written in Latin, perhaps from a rough draft in French. What
kind of Latin? We find an example in one quatrain that was left in
Latin, the "Incantion Against Inept Critics," found at the end of
Century VI. Some commentator's call it liturgical Latin, others just
Low Latin. jean Leroux in his Clef' (1712) came forth with something
much more specific. He was convinced that Nostradamus had read a book
called Progymnasmata in artem orator- ium by Franciscus Sylvius,
professor at the University of Paris. This book printed in 1528, set
forth in the greatest detail how to produce the most elegant Latin.
Leroux cites chapter and verse of Sylvius' book for ten instances in
which his precepts have been followed in this one quatrain alone. The
French translation of this "elegant" Latin is virtually verbatim. This
means that Latin syntax, not French syntax, prevails. It means, for
instance. that an ablative absolute construction loses its identity as
such in uninflected French, and yet requires the translation of an
ablative absolute,
By this theory it would seem that the proper sense of the quatrains
could best be derived by translating them back, verbatim, into Latin,
In his bilingual Janus in 1594, Chavigny did indeed give many of the
quatrains Latin, without, however, much more sense being made by them
by any -Perhaps Chavigny, excellent classics scholar that he was, did
not use proper Latin. Or perhaps the theory is worthy of but limited
applica-tion. In any, case, this theory must be kept in mind, even if
its application by no means makes the quatrains much clearer.
1 Although the quatrains are nominally translated into French about ,5
per cent of the words are not recognizable as French today. About 2.8
per cent of the vocabulary is merely frenchified Latin (with slight
changes in the endings) if not pure Latin. Another 2.1 per cent
Consists of 01(1 French words.' The remaining 0.1 per cent consists of
words of Greek or Provencal origin .
2 Le Pelletier mentions Spanish, Italian, Celtic and Hebrew as the
source of many words, but there is only one Hebrew word 1096), a
sentence in Spanish (1025), and nothing from the other two tongues
that could riot be derived as well or better from Latin or Old French.
Perhaps the biggest source of confusion is in connection with words
identical with French words, but which the context shows to have
other derivation. Thus the word pont means, "bridge" in French, but we
find Nostradamus using it to mean "sea," from the Creek pontos. or
'Papacy" from the Latin pontifex (and derivatives). Although pie means
"magpie" French, Nostradamus used it as a derivative of the Latin
pius, "pious"
3. Anagrams were all the rage in Nostradamus' day, It is quite,
reasonable that he should have made use of them. Thus Chyren is put
for Henryc-us), Nersaf for "France," Rapis for "Paris," noir for roy,
"king," and (Mendosus for "Vendosme" (the actual Bourbon sub-branch
that came to the throne). In the anagrams latitude is provided by the
inter changeability, of and i,u and v, s and c, i and j. The use of
silent s instead of a circumflex similar variations of form in
accentation must also be noted. Although the perfect anagram required
the use of the same letters, Nostradamus seems to have allowed himself
the change of one letter, but never more than one.
Similar to the use of anagrams is the rise of enigmas. Prominent
amongst these are Aenobarbe, which means Bronzebeard but is also the
family name the of Antichrist Nero, symbol of pagan wickedness, the
Pourceau Mi-homme, which means "pig-half-man"; and various gentlemen
named after Roman gods, like Jupiter, Mars and Saturn.
4. Mythological and historical allusions veil several quatrains. One
quatrain refers to the story of Bellerophon and Proetus, another to
that of Jupiter and Phaeton. In the Epistle someone is called a second
Thrasibulus, so we must know that this gentleman was the leader of the
popular party at Athens who restored the democracy in 403 B.C. and is
therefore the symbol of a radical demagogue. 'As Old French was still
much in use in it is riot quite correct to consider this amongst the
deliberate obscurifications of Nostrdamus. many words could be derived
from either Latin or French equally one whole quatrain in (426) and
most of another (444),
5. References to many places are veiled by use of their classical
names or origin. Thus we find Port Phocen for Marseilles. founded by
the ' Phoceans; Byzantium for Constantinople or Istanbul; Agatha for
Agen; Lutetia for Paris; Bastarnia for Poland; Hister for the Danube;
Pannonia for Hungary; Lusitania for Portugal and many, many others.
6. Nostradamus makes ample use of devices variously considered as
grammatical, poetical or rhetorical, and derived chiefly from Latin or
Greek usage. Chief amongst these are-
a) ELLIPSIS, the omission of words which are understood. Thus qui is
used frequently for ce qui, "he who."
b) SYNECDOCHE, the part standing for the whole. Thus sword stands for
army at times, or Paris may stand for France. A common
non-Nostra-damiam
contemporary example is "the Kremlin for the U.S.S.R. How-ever, this
has been carried too far by some interpreters in twisting simple
statements into farfetched images.
C) HYPERBATON, the transposition or inversion of the natural order.
This is found throughout. The dividing line between it and the
previously men-tioned use of Latin syntax is rather blurry.
d) APOCOPE, the omission of the last letter or syllable. In
Nostradamus, this amounts to abbreviation. We find Carpen for
Carpentras, Ast for Asti, Carcas for Careassonne, etc.
e) SYNCOPE, the omission of a letter or syllable from the middle of a
word. Thus donra is used for donnera, lairra for laissera, monstra for
monstrera and Tamins for Tamisiens (those of the Thames).
f) APHERESIS, the omission of a letter or syllable from the beginning
of a word. Thus, vers6 is used for renvers6, "overthrown."
g) EPENTHESIS, the insertion of a letter or syllable in the middle.
Thus xvc find Timbre for Tibre, the Tiber River.
h) PROSTHESIS, the insertion of an extra letter at the beginning of a
word. Thus, Aspire is put for Spire, a city in Bavaria.
i) METATHESIS, the transposition of letters or syllables. Thus Ucetia
is used for Uticensia, Latin name for the town of Uzes.
Within this framework, the majority of the words and phrases make
sense, and follow some sort of pattern. Nevertheless, Leroux's ,dew
that all the quat-rains are actually the epitome of polished
literature and contain no bar-barities is carrying things a bit too
far. There are many instances where all adjective does not agree with
a noun it obviously modifies and where a plural verb has a singular
subject, or vice versa. In this connection, Parker has made a
worth-while comment:
The obscurity imparted to the Centuries by the wilful use of anagrams,
ape-copation, prosthesis, epenthesis, and other disfigurations of the
written word is intensified by the numerous typographical errors which
could not fail to creep into the versions printed from manuscript
copies. In some cases the misprint was due to the illegibility of the
original; in others it was due to the desire of the compositor to
rectify what seemed to him incorrect; in the rest it was due to the
ordinary mechanical difficulties to which any printing is subject.
Moreover, such is the nature of the work that, in the absence of any
original manuscript or authentic corrected edition, it is impossible
to establish the true reading for many varying passages, for the
logical word, or rather, the Obvious one, is by no means necessarily
the correct one. . . . As a rule, it is seldom that a slight change
will make any, considerable difference in the meaning, except for
fantastic interpretations.
As Nostradamus himself says, the quatrains are composed out of "a
-poetic furor, rather than according to the strict rules of poetry."
No one will argue this point, for as a poet Nostradamus hardly ranks
very high. The meter is basically iambic pentameter, with varying
"male" and "female" lengths in the alternating pairs of lines.
However, there are instances where, notwithstanding all the crabbed
twists, the lines don't scan properly.
Punctuation does not seem to have been particularly dear to his heart.
What punctuation there is is probably the work of zealous printers,
who manifested wide disagreement. Nostradamus' aversion to punctuation
is particularly distressing in the case of the long-drawn-out Preface,
and the even longer Epistle.
LB
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| User: "Peter Lemesurier" |
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| Title: Re: Quatrain VI-23 decyphered (was: Re: Medici) |
15 Oct 2003 11:00:32 AM |
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On 15 Oct 2003 03:21:28 -0700, (Leigh_Bee)
either wrote or (if so marked) quoted:
Although the perfect anagram required
the use of the same letters, Nostradamus seems to have allowed himself
the change of one letter, but never more than one.
Ah well -- there we are, then!
What does LeVert have to say about it?
--
Peter
http://www.nostradamus500.com
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| User: "Claude Latremouille" |
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| Title: Re: Quatrain VI-23 decyphered (was: Re: Medici) |
15 Oct 2003 03:05:51 PM |
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On 15 Oct 2003 03:21:28 -0700, (Leigh_Bee)
wrote:
*
Perhaps E Leoni can explain in the rules of the game what is
permissable and what is "FANTASY"
*
Perhaps this Leoni can summarize what was already known about
Nostradamus' texts when he wrote about them, but he most
definitely cannot explain anything which has been discovered
since.
*
This interesting list (which you have posted many times before,
sometimes omitting Leoni's references to anagrams, sometimes
including them -- depending on your mood, presumably), can only
lead the *the BIG* question: did Nostradamus *have to* use these
many literary tricks to write his poetry?
*
You already know my answer: no, he would not have had to, had his
texts not been encyphered. The fact that he did use these many
tricks shows that he could not have encyphered the multiple
versions of his prophecy within the very same published text
without having to twist the language to the ultimate degree,
inventing words in the process, deliberately misspelling many,
obviously linking singular words with plural verbs, and vice-
versa, linking masculine nouns with feminine adjectives, and
vice-versa, and the list goes on and on and on.
*
On the other hand, Leoni (or any other non French-speaking
author) could not have discovered that Nostradamus wrote in line-
based cryptic anagrams because this discovery requires a number
of conditions which were not met at the time (1961?).
*
They are:
*
1. Having an easy access to at least some of Nostradamus'
originals. This became possible only in 1984 when the Friends of
Nostradamus in Lyon began to publish some of these originals in
facsimile form.
*
2. Having a very intimate knowledge of the French language, as it
only becomes evident that Nostradamus' published texts are
'fishy' if one can see what they ought to have been, but were
not.
*
3. Having had the benefit of the passage of time, so as to see
the apparent meaning of some of the published quatrains as they
refer to 20th century events. The hidden prophecy was intended to
be discovered only when it was, so any previous author's timing
was wrong. It is a 'booby-trapped' prophecy, which comes to life
only after certain events have happened.
*
4. Having a peculiar type of intelligence, i.e., one which does
not practice 'reasoning by exclusion', e.g., not rejecting an
explanation just because there is another explanation, as BOTH
can be true at the same time; one which does not reject an idea
just because it looks silly (Ruzo showed the way, but Leoni could
not have read Ruzo before he published, as Ruzo published after
Leoni did), as some 'silly' ideas can eventually turn out to be
not so silly after all.
*
5. Not being narrow-minded, e.g.:
*
But in the last hundred years such vast strides have been taken in the
cataloguing of human knowledge in convenient reference books that
there now remains very little in the text of the prophecies that has
not been clarified, or cannot be clarified.
*
In a word, nothing can be discovered about these texts which has
not already been found. Therein lies Leoni's narrow-mindedness.
*
Nostradamus states in several places in his Preface arid Epistle that
he had deliberately obscured his prophecies and veiled them as heavily
possible.
*
And yet, this overt statement still has not ignited any spark in
the grey cells of our regular contributors. The question being:
*HOW* did Nostradamus veil his prophecies? Answer: he encyphered
them.
*
But, then again, the decyphered prophecy itself says that this
fact would not be believed by the people who can save their own
skin by believing it, i.e., the residents of Paris on the night
of Sunday, August 13, 2017. Three millions die as a result.
*
The ultimate question is, of course: *WHY* did Nostradamus bother
to encypher his prophecy about this unexpected event if he
already knew that 3,000,000 people would die as a result of the
fact that his decyphered prophecy would be laughed at, wrongly
attributed to the discoverer of his encyphered text, burned as an
immoral book, etc. That is the question.
*
As my own answer contradicts any possible answer Nostradamus
could ever give to it, I tend to view this difference of
philosophical approach as yet another indication that he viewed
the world quite differently than I do.
*
My own view? If Nostradamus saw in his visions the circumstances
of the unintended destruction of Paris, then that event already
exists in the fabric of the Universe and there is nothing anyone
can do about it.
*
Except saving a few lives, perhaps?
*
Happy 500th, Nosty!
*
Claude Latrémouille
*
=== ===
=== CLAUDE LATRÉMOUILLE ===
===========================
--
*** ** ***
C L A U D E L A T R E M O U I L L E
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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