There are several main differences between the editions of 1555 and those of 1557. I will give some of them as an example.

Perhaps the main, and, as will be shown later, intentional difference is contained in quatrain 3-18, all attention is on its third line.

Option editions of 1555 :

Apres la pluie laict asses longuete,

En plusieurs lieux de Reins le ciel touché:

Helasquel meurtre de seng pres d'eux s'apreste,

Peres & filz roys n'oseront approcher.

Option more late editions :

Apres la pluie laict asses longuete,

En plusieurs lieux de Reims le ciel touche':

O quel conflict de sang pres d'eux s'apreste,

Peres & filz roys n'oseront approcher.

" Seng " is an untranslatable word, and most likely means " sang " – blood. Such a "mistake" for this book, as it turned out, is very significant. In addition, these editions differ from each other by words composed entirely of capital letters. One example is in quatrain 3-51: " PARIS " (1555), " Paris " (1557)

Another distinctive feature of the 1555 editions is the replacement of words with symbols, as, for example, in quatrain 4-30: "The Moon and the Sun" ( Luna Sol ) are replaced with drawn symbols.

And, of course, there have been cases of substitution of the main prepositions ( de , du , la , le , etc.).

It is possible that the next, already complete edition of the Prophecies, was published in 1558 or 1559, which has not come down to us. At present, the earliest complete Les Propheties " are copies of the year 1568, i.e. published after the death of the Author, in Lyon, by the Benoist Rigaud .

The book contains:

Preface dedicated to the Author's son Cesar;

The first seven Centuries: the first five have 100 quatrains each, the sixth has 99 quatrains plus an unnumbered quatrain – a warning written in Latin, the seventh consists of 42 quatrains;

Quite capacious Epistle to Henry the Second;

The last three Centuries, 100 quatrains each.

Total 941 full-fledged quatrain.

Linguistic analysis of the 1568 editions gives reason to believe that this is an amended version of the 1557 edition with forty-two quatrains in the seventh centurion (Utrecht).

What is this book? As the name implies, this is a collection of short, four-line poetic prophecies. Unlike other works of Nostradamus, they are simply replete with disastrous and terrible events. Plague, famine, death, blood, flood, fire – this is the future the Prophet foretells to mankind. The lack of dates, with rare exceptions, gives interpreters a reason to tie "liked" quatrains to various events that happened. The vague style of writing and the complexity of translation contribute greatly to this. In general, it all depends on the imagination of the interpreter.

The Author himself, which can be seen in the Preface to Cesar, assured that: “I compiled books of prophecies, each of which contains a hundred astronomical quatrains, composed of prophecies that I wished to compose a little vaguely, these are continuous predictions from the present time to the year 3797.” It was this date, openly named, that captivated all those who were eager to reveal the secrets of the future. It took me quite a long time.

A huge number of books have been published on this subject. I read somewhere that the "Prophecies" are, after the "Bible", the most mysterious book in the world.

It took me a very long time to come to an understanding of the secret writing of Nostradamus, but the beginning of this process gave such a rapid acceleration to everything that followed, which cannot be described in words.

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