Note 58 — FORTUNE-TELLING.
Reading edition
Let us try. In his second century, prediction 66, he says: “From great dangers the captive is escaped. A little time, great fortune changed. In the palace the people are caught. By good augury the city is besieged.” “What is this,” a believer might exclaim, “but the escape of Napoleon from Elba—his changed fortune, and the occupation of Paris by the allied armies?” Let us try again. In his third century, prediction 98, he says: “Two royal brothers will make fierce war on each other; So mortal shall be the strife between them, That each one shall occupy a fort against the other; For their reign and life shall be the quarrel.” Some Lillius Redivivus would find no difficulty in this prediction. To use a vulgar phrase, it is as clear as a pikestaff. Had not the astrologer in view Don Miguel and Don Pedro when he penned this stanza, so much less obscure and oracular than the rest? Return