So come, my son, strive to understand what I have found out through my calculations which

accord with revealed inspiration, because now the sword of death approaches us, with pestilence

and war more horrible than there has ever been - because of three men's work - and famine. And

this sword shall smite the earth and return to it often, for the stars confirm this upheaval and it is

also written: I shall punish their injustices with iron rods, and shall strike them with blows.

For God's mercy will be poured forth only for a certain time, my son, until the majority of my

prophecies are fulfilled and this fulfillment (sic) is complete. Then several times in the course of

the doleful tempests the Lord shall say: Therefore I shall crush and destroy and show no mercy;

and many other circumstances shall result from floods and continual rain (11) of which I have

written more fully in my other prophecies, composed at some length, not in a chronological

sequence, in prose, limiting the places and times and exact dates so that future generations will

see, while experiencing these inevitable events, how I have listed others in clearer language, so

that despite their obscurities these things shall be understood: When the time comes for the

removal of ignorance, the matter will be clearer still.

-Nostradamus