FORECASTING is an old and honourable profession. The Greek oracles did a roaring trade in personal predictions the Roman augurs guided the affairs of state and for the past loo years or so meteorologists have tried to advise on the future behaviour of the elements.
But all these practitioners concentrate or did on the more or less immediate future. When it comes to long range forecasts anticipating happenings many centuries ahead the prize must surely go to Nostradamus.
Michel de Notredame was born in 1503 and trained as a physician. Indeed, he was sufficiently well thought of in the medical circles of his day to become in due course the personal doctor of King Charles IX of France. But his forte was astrology, and in 1555 he published a book which has been a source of endless speculation since.
Les Centuries was a collection of 1,000 rhyming quatrains, each of which was filled with mysterious and ambiguous references to alleged future events. One, for example, describes a scene where
Plus part du champ encontre
Hister sera.
It translates as "The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister" and is widely believed, among those who like to believe such things, to be a reference to Adolf Hitler. Another quatrain has it that
Aupres des portes et dedans deux cites
Seront deux fleaux et oncques n'apperceu un tel.
"Near the harbour and in two cities will be two scourges the like of which have never been seen before" is taken to be a reference to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. But those events are all behind us perhaps we should pay more heed to
Apres le siege tenu dix sept ans,
Cinq changeront en tel revolvu terme.
This tells us that "After the See has been held seventeen years, five will change within the same period of time".
If we remember that Pope John Paul II has now reigned for 17 years, the quatrain as a whole can be interpreted as a prophecy that there will be only five more popes before the Second Coming. At least Nostradamus is more generous than our own St Malachy, who is on record, apparently, as predicting that the next successor of St Peter will be the very last.
Although taken less seriously nowadays than they used to be in days gone by, the prophecies of Nostradamus are still studied closely by those with an interest in astrology even though their author died 440 years ago on this day, July 2nd, 1566.