THE SUN I

DATE:2029
QUATRAIN: 2/29


L'ORIENTAL SORTIRA DE SON SIEGE,
PASSER LES MONTS APENNINS, VOIR LA GAULE:
TRANSPERCERA DU CIEL LES EAUX ET NEIGE,
ET UN CHACUM FRAPPERA DE SA GAULE.
                                       *
THE MAN FROM THE EAST WILL LEAVE HIS HOME
AND CROSS THE APENNINE MOUNTAINS, TO SEE FRANCE
HE WILL PIERCE FROM THE SKY BOTH THE SEAS AND THE SNOW
HE WILL STRIKE EVERYONE WITH HIS STAFF


The sun rises in the east, and people are buried with their feet towards the east to show that they died in the hope of resurrection. We turn to the east when cadavers should lie face upwards, an d with their feet pointed towards Elysium-well away from the inferno in the west, in other words, and the sinister regions of the night. The east, then, isa powerful concept, and the place towards which we customarily look for enlightenment. All this to say that Nostradamus was most probably alluding to the sun, when he spoke of the "man from the east", and if one reads the quatrain in that way, it is actually rather beautiful.

Another reading would judge the "enlightenment" from the east metaphorically, as spiritual enlightenment. Here the concept to the "staff" comes in, with its revocations of the ancient sceptre, which traditionally meant power, authority and dignity. Kings, of course, struck chosen recipients with their staff to raise them high in the realm, and to "strike one's staff" also meant to lodge somewhere for the night, with the staff, in this instance, implying a tent staff. This brings us neatly back to the sun,and to its role in creating a suitable environment in which to grow bread-a.k.a the "staff of life". so perhaps this is a prayer?

Summary


The return to spiritual values foreseen in the last quatrain is reinforced in this hymn to the abundance of the sun, and to enlightenment.