are aware of
his approach; but ours has come exactly in the year of which astrologers
have written so much about the fiery trigon that happens in it; just in
the month in which (according to Cyprian), Mars comes up to a very
perfect conjunction with the other two superior planets; just in the day
when Mars has joined Jupiter, and just in the region where this
conjunction has taken place. Therefore the apparition of this star is
not like a secret hostile irruption, as was that one of 1572, but the
spectacle of a public triumph, or the entry of a mighty potentate; when
the couriers ride in some time before to prepare his lodgings, and the
crowd of young urchins begin to think the time over long to wait, then
roll in, one after another, the ammunition and money, and baggage
waggons, and presently the trampling of horse and the rush of people
from every side to the streets and windows; and when the crowd have
gazed with their jaws all agape at the troops of knights; then at last
the trumpeters and archers and lackeys so distinguish the person of the
monarch, that there is no occasion to point him out, but every one cries
of his own accord--'Here we have him'. What it may portend is hard to
determine, and this much only is certain, that it comes to tell mankind
either nothing at all or high and mighty news, quite beyond human sense
and understanding. It will have an important influence on political and
social relations; not indeed by its own nature, but as it were
accidentally through the disposition of mankind. First, it portends to
the booksellers great disturbances and tolerable gains; for almost every
_Theologus_, _Philosophicus_, _Medicus_, and _Mathematicus_, or whoever
else, having no laborious occupation entrusted to him, seeks his
pleasure _in studiis_, will make particular remarks upon it, and will
wish to bring these remarks to the light. Just so will others, learned
and unlearned, wish to know its meaning, and they will buy the authors
who profess to tell them. I mention these things merely by way of
example, because although thus much can be easily predicted without
great skill, yet may it happen just as easily, and in the same manner,
that the vulgar, or whoever else is of easy faith, or, it may be, crazy,
may wish to exalt himself into a great prophet; or it may even happen
that some powerful lord, who has good foundation and beginning of great
dignities, will be cheered on by this phenomenon to venture on some