CERTAIN REMARKABLE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS.

THE NOTABLE FRENCH seer Nostradamus (1503-1566), whose Prophecies have been in constant circulation since they were first printed, is credited with many astonishing predictions of future events. Just how astonishing these predictions were is best illustrated by a few examples from the writings themselves. Here are a few of the more notable prophecies, presented with their English translations and brief explanations of their significance.

No. XCVII.
Sur le pont d’Avignon
On y danse, on y danse.
Sur le pont d’Avignon
On y danse tout en rond.

With glass for eyes he looks ahead;
His fingers grasp a staff of fire;
He feasts himself on buttered bread
And sings in a glee club or choir.

Here is a transparent and remarkably prescient prediction of the development of practical electric traction under Werner von Siemens, father of the modern streetcar, who in fact wore reading glasses and was well known to enjoy a bit of bread with dinner. The “staff of fire” is, of course, the trolley pole (now replaced by a pantograph in many cities) by which streetcars collected their electric power from overhead wires. No record has survived of Siemens’ singing with any choral group, but there is no reason to suppose that he did not.

No. CCLXIV.
Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je raisonne
Comme une grande personne.
Moi je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que la raison.

Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old.

The great Irish potato famine of the 1840s, during which the Irish were reduced to eating pease porridge, or rather would have been reduced to eating pease porridge had any pease been available, is here confidently and clearly predicted.

No. MCMLXIV.
Au clair de la lune,
Mon ami Pierrot,
Prête-moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour l’amour de Dieu!

The Duke of Eighty-Four will live
And die and live again
Till he has nothing left to give:
Sing hey! nonny nonny and a hot cha cha.

In this prophecy Nostradamus appears to be merely foaming at the mouth.

No. MMMM.
Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines.
Din, din, don. Din, din, don.

The Zebu of the North takes wing
And rolls the English Channel back;
The Archaeopteryx will sing
And run the Mallard off the track.

There is no need to explain the significance of this quatrain, which predicts the election of Boris Johnson as mayor of London. Indeed, the significance is so extraordinarily obvious that it is surprising, in hindsight, that this interpretation was not discovered until May 3, 2008.

FORTHCOMING WORKS BY DR. BOLI.

Dr. Boli’s Handy Field Guide to Handy Field Guides. The most comprehensive field manual of its type, this lavishly illustrated volume (including sixteen color plates) identifies all the major field guides currently in circulation. Armed with this book, you can easily and quickly distinguish field guides by publisher, subject, author, and date. Clear and simple enough for the newcomer to this fascinating hobby, but comprehensive enough to satisfy the most experienced field-guide watcher. 12mo, 548 pp., 16 plates.

On This Day in History.

ON THIS DAY in 1842, Samuel Morse sent an experimental message by telegraph from Washington, D. C., to Laurel, Md., over the still-uncompleted line to Baltimore. In reply he received a message offering patent medicines from Canada at a greatly reduced price.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS N AT.

WHEN DR. BOLI was asked by a church in Pittsburgh to translate the Decalogue into the vernacular, he was of course delighted to be of assistance. Dr. Boli has a deep paternal love for his adopted city, and it seemed a very good idea that the Yinzers, as the inhabitants are called from their characteristic use of the second-person plural pronoun “yinz,” should have the words of the Ten Commandments rendered in a language they can understand.

Note that Dr. Boli has used the numbering of the Commandments adopted by the Lutherans and the Papists. If the other sects do not approve of that numbering, they can get their own Ten Commandments.

1. I’m Gawad, right? So yinz don’t got no other gawad, and yinz don’t try ta make yerselves a gawad aat a clay er sumpn, neither.

2. Yinz don’t go sayin ‘Oh my Gawad’ n at, cause that’s jus ignernt.

3. Yinz gotta go ta church on Sunday, er at least Saherty night.

4. Don’t go bein ignernt to yer mum an dad.

5. Yinz don’t kill nobody.

6. Yinz don’t boink yer bud’s wife, kay?

7. Yinz don’t steal nuffn.

8. Yinz don’t lie ta nobody abaat nuffn, cause I can tell an I’ll smack you.

9. Yinz don’t whine abaat not havin yer bud’s haas.

10. Yinz don’t whine abaat not havin yer bud’s wife, er his guys, er his car, er anythin he gots.

ASK DR. BOLI.

Dear Dr. Boli: Why do pirates say “R” so much? Don’t they know any other letters?—Sincerely, A New England Schoolmarm.

Dear Madam: The letter R is indeed highly favored among pirates, but certainly not for reasons of illiteracy. On the whole, pirates (who are greatly misrepresented in popular entertainment) are a remarkably literate lot. The long intervals of inactivity between plunderings—intervals that, in fact, make up most of a pirate’s career—are conducive to reflection and literary pursuits, and pirates while away the time in reading small-press literary magazines and composing sonnets in the Italian style after the manner of Petrarch.

Precisely because of their pronounced literary bent, pirates are zealous guardians of their own traditions. The chant of “R” began as a protest against the trial of Captain Jack Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack on account of the large number of stray cats he had adopted. When Calico Jack was imprisoned in Kingston in 1720 (1573 old style), a large crowd of fellow pirates gathered around the governor’s mansion shouting “Rackham! Rackham!” The governor, however, hearing the chant through his closed bedroom window, mistook it for a crowd of townspeople shouting “Rack him! Rack him!” and accordingly sent Calico Jack to the rack. In order to avoid similar embarrassments at his trial, the pirates who protested shortened their chant to the unambiguous initial “R.”

Their protest was to no avail. Calico Jack was hanged after a brief trial, and a collection had to be taken up to provide for the stray cats. But pirates everywhere still honor his memory, and the initial they shouted outside the courthouse has evolved into a pirate’s favorite oath. When a pirate says “Arrr,” what he means is “By the bones of the lamented Captain Jack Rackham, may God rest his soul.”

 

DOCTRINES OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.

No. 3.—Antithesis of Syracuse.

LITTLE HAS SURVIVED of the works of most of the important Sicilian philosophers of pre-Alexandrian times. Like most of his countrymen, Antithesis is known mostly from isolated notices and quotations in the works of better-known philosophers. The most important of these fragments are reproduced here, showing that Antithesis seems to have been especially interested in the philosophy of mathematics.

For Antithesis saith that the one is not the many, and the many is not the one. And of this he claims to have the strongest proof, although he does not produce it.

Antithesis in his book of Divisions says that the many may in fact be the few and the few the many, but the one cannot be the few, nor can the few be the one, without contradiction.

But against this Antithesis saith that the one beareth no resemblance to the few at all; for the idea (eidos) of fewness is subsumed in the idea of multiplicity.

Mesohippus, on seeing his rival Antithesis in the marketplace discoursing with a disciple, said that the students of Antithesis were one and not many, upon which Antithesis hit him with [the rest is missing].

And as an authority we may cite Antithesis of Syracuse, who commonly said that the universe was one and not many, but one day, having drunk a quantity of the best Falernian, proclaimed to his disciples, “Alas, now I see with my own eyes that the universe is many and not one.”

FUNNY PAGES.

ERRATA.

In the recipe for caramel apple sturgeon on page 149, “stir vaingloriously” should read “stir vigorously.” You may wish to mark the correction on that page in order to avoid embarrassment.

In the recipe for boiled water on page 212, the last paragraph was inadvertently omitted. It should read as follows: “Now pour the water into a kettle or pot, place it on the stove, and turn the burner on ‘high,’ leaving the water on the stove until it boils.”

Several readers have written on the subject of the Swedish Pickled Asparagus Tarts on page 283 to remind us that “Sweden” is not a real country. We apologize for the error.

It has been found more helpful to state the quantity of flour on page 320 as “one cup” rather than as “1/1,258 wheelbarrow.”

The caption under figure 1 for celery and onion stew on page 551 misidentifies the onions. The onions are in fact the roundish objects in the picture.

In the recipe for Potemkin salad on page 1,375, substitute Romaine lettuce for radicchio. Further research indicates that there is no such plant as “radicchio.”

The “index” beginning on page 2,591 is actually the index to a book on mechanical improvements to the unicycle, which the author was preparing at the same time as the present work.

In the first erratum above, “caramel apple sturgeon” should read “Nova Scotia herring blintz cake.”

DR. BOLI’S PRESS-CLIPPING BUREAU.

Expect more news on the final installment of The Case of the Missing Case as the countdown continues.

FORTHCOMING WORKS BY DR. BOLI.

Dr. Boli’s Natural History of the Lettuces and Endives, in English Heroic Verse. The great fault of most works of botany, whether aimed at the scholar, or designed for the consumption of horticulturalists, or merely created for the diversion and education of the amateur gardener, has always been the mundane and prosaic nature of their language. Poets have poured out rivers of ink to celebrate the loves of men and women, which in the end are merely facts of human biology; but on the equally wonderful and no less poetic truths of botany they have been strangely silent. This work, the first in a projected series on common garden greens, consists of twelve books of heroic verse in the best style, suitable for readers of all ages who have wearied of Dryden and Pope and wish to enjoy poetry on a subject of more immediate concern to the average gardener. 8vo, 322 pp.

DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.

United States Presidents Supplement.

Adams, John Quincy. John Adams gained the nickname “Quincy” as a result of a fraternity prank, the details of which were never divulged.

Buchanan, James. It is not generally known that James Buchanan was in fact a tool of Satan.

Coolidge, Calvin. The complete collection of Calvin Coolidge’s speeches, addresses, and extemporaneous remarks during his two terms as president was printed in 1929 as a four-page pamphlet.

Fillmore, Millard. Milllard Fillmore was only four feet eight inches tall, but he appears taller in paintings and engravings because he refused to appoint anyone over five feet tall to his cabinet.

Pierce, Franklin. When it was revealed that Franklin Pierce was known at home by the nickname “Young Hickory,” the Native American and Anti-Hardwood Party withdrew its endorsement of him.

Tyler, John. John Tyler was annexed by the Republic of Texas in 1845.

Washington, George. George Washington is an entirely mythical figure. The best scholarship indicates that the first truly historical President of the United States was James Monroe.