| Réplique
de Peter Lemesurier
Quote: "As to the strange repetition of the formula - like a leitmotiv - "Roy de Bloys dans Avignon régner", in the Centuries, and the fact that the last verse of one of the quatrains bearing the said formula is uncompleted, we think that it is a clear sign that the Centuries were at first presented as a posthumous and unfinished work which by no means could have been published during the life of Michel de Nostredame". Lemesurier: I wonder whether you are paying enough attention to the fact that Nostradamus's Centuries (except in one or two cases) *rhyme* to a set scheme, and that therefore, in the case of evidently 'mixed' pieces such as:
Le Roy de Bloys dans Avignon regner. it is quite easy to see who is borrowing what from whom? - Réaction de Jacques Halbronn Concerning your argument about the fact that Crespin is producing "mixed pieces", I think that it is not the point. The lines which appear at the begining of the text of Crespin are only a résumé of the prose which follows and I do not think that Crespin borrowed those linesand especially the first line from anybody . In any case, in my Documents inexplorés sur le phénoméne Nostradamus and you do not give the impression of having read my book published by Robert Benazra, 4 years ago, we have plenty of examples of the same process in his Prophéties dédiées à la puissance divine et à la nation française. (1572). Most quatrains could be called "mixed pieces" anyway and the fact that Roy de Bloys is repeated in two different quatrains , underline the fact that a certain line could be indifferently placed in one quatrain or another, including of course other lines apart from the first one. As to borrowing, it is by no means such an easy task to demonstrate "what from whom" and I found, for instance, very difficult to explain to a native Chinese for instance that the English language has borrowed thousands and thousand of words from the French and not the reverse.
Précision de Peter Lemesurier
About the posthumous character of the Centuries : The only edition whose 'posthumosity' I agree about is the 1568 one (and its successors, of course, including the Pierre Rigaud ones)!
Observation de Jacques Halbronn The fact that in Crespin, who writes after 1568; there are absolutely no trace of the quatrains belonging to centuries V to VII does not apparently bother you although at the same time you declare that Crespin borrowed from the Centuries. How is that?
Réplique de Peter Lemesurier I am not about to rely on the word of a known impostor for my information on Nostradamus (what did you say Crespin called himself -- or are you also suggesting that Nostradamus borrowed his name from him instead of vice versa?!)! Moreover, if and when I borrow money from the bank, I don't necessarily borrow the bank as well! ;0 As for the Chinese, a little historical etymology would soon show them where French has borrowed from English and viceversa -- and if (to take a rather more apt parallel) you cared at the same time to compare the English text of Shakespeare with the French text of Shakespeare, you might find the fact that the one is in rhymed pentameters and the other isn't fairly convincing as a way of showing them which language it appeared in first! So I repeat: look at the regular rhyme-scheme in the Nostradamus version and compare it with the chaos in the piece you quote (and I won't even adduce the substandard printing in the Crespin as evidence, even though it would have been difficult for Nostradamus to have arrived at his version by copying *that*!), and there can be little doubt about which was the original, can there?
Réponse de Jacques Halbronn The fact that Crespin might be considered as an impostor does not mean that he uses the work of Nostradamus as a plagiarist, it only means, in his case, that he pretends to be a successor of Nostradamus and that he does use his name but without pretending to be Michel de Nostredame. The image of robbing a bank is interesting because one should ask why he took from a certain group of quatrains and not from another. Besides, the quatrains he would have ignored are situated in the middle of the Centuries. In any case, I do never said that Nostradamus took from Crespin since he died before Crespin published any prophecy that we know of it. Those who took from Crespin' work to expose it as being of Nostradamus are the true impostores. The question is : did Crespin contribute or not to this forgery? But, precisely, if it is a forgery it is not to be attributed to Nostradamus. The problem is that by saying, as you actually do, that Crespin is a fraud, then we might conclude that he was perfectly capable to produce false quatrains, which is an hypothesis that you seem quite relucttand to consider. Now, on the point of the poor quality of the text as being an argument against Crespin as a source for the quatrains, which is my position - a voluntary or unvoluntary source by the way - it is quite clear to me that Crespin's text has be consierably rearranged and redistributed.. In the Prophéties dédiées à la puissance divine etc, you will find hardly one entire quatrain. Instead of centurical quatrains, you have lines of several quatrains combined together. If Nostradamus'Centuries were so well known at the end of the Sixties of the XVIth Century, I cannot imagine that someone would have used them in such a bizarre way or reproduce them just like that attributing them not to Nostradamus but to someone else. Besides, do you know that the first quatrain of the first Centurie appeared, in 1568 in many occasions under the poster of another so called impostor like Nostradamus le Jeune? Do you really think that one could afford to borrow such a quatrain like that? My position is the one of the "Arroseur arrosé" (see the famous film of Louis Lumière). Those imitators of Nostrdamus have eventually been exploited, by taking their nostradamic work "à la Nostradamus" - we refer here to an imitation of the quatrains of the almanachs not of the Centuries - to produce fake Nostradamus. You have been, yourself, working on sources of many quatrains. And I am sure that you will agree the esthetical criterium is absolutely irrelevant in this regard. Let us take a rather poorly written text in prose which is rendered into verses, who will declare that the verses aree the source of this text just because it is more nicely put? Moreover, sometimes, the plagiarist might produce something much more elegant that his very source and "that" as you say can very well be older and archaic that what it became later on..... Réponse
de Peter Lemesurier But when it is not just the gist of the text,
but its actual words, that are re-arranged and -- clearly, given that
the words form a perfectly-rhyming quatrain -- 'muddled up', it has
to be clear that the text that became muddled up had to be there *first*
in order to become muddled up in the first place. In other words,
I disagree with you that the text's aesthetic elements are irrelevant:
ALL elements are relevant. As for the other, more general, arguments,
I would refer you to Benazra and Elmar Gruber, who are much more competent
to comment on the issue than I am. Remarques de Jacques
Halbronn Your argument would be strong if the quatrains
were indeed constituting obvious units. And this is See the "Avis au Lecteur "(page 21) Nous "avons esté
contraints repeter deux & trois fois quelques quatrains assavoir
ceux dont les parties ne s'accordoyent pas à mesme temps (...) que
si venant à diviser en deux,
trois ou quatre portions tels quatrains une chacune ressemblant aux
fueillets (sic) de la Sibylle, mise à part, eut esté
rapportée à son lieu & temps convenable" Peter Lemesurier: And who said that?
Chavigny, trying to prove his Jacques Halbronn: And as I said, why
the Avignon line appears twice Superficial or not,
it is what holds each quatrain It is not that difficult
to change the order of Peter Lemesurier
You could have fooled
Nostradamus sometimes! To return to linguistic
comparison, it is always To make money and prove
himself a 'prophet', imagine! In any case,
even those texts are only Peter Lemesurier
Oui, très Halbronnesque!
;) There are people who spend all their energy
by Or, contrariwise: As a matter of fact,
the quatrains of the almanachs - called Presages - are made of a combination
of short and sibyline formulas
and it seems that our human brain
has a natural tendency to try to understand and integrate any discourse
supposed to describe any object so
that it should make sense as such, which also happens in the case
of an astrological consultation, quite a convenient process for the
astrologer so that an addition of statements taken from the chart,
will eventually produce, at
least in the mind of the client, a significant result..That is why nostradamist astrologers are the
ones who have the utmost difficulty
not to find some clue to accept
a quatrain as a compact unit in the same way that they also consider
a natal chart as such, not to speak, of course,
of Astrology perceived as
a perfectly coherent body of knowledge (see our discussions on this
issue of Grande Conjonction) By the way, it would be quite useful
for certain people to think about the origin of the presages which
are the most ancient and genuine
quatrains we know if not of Nostradamus - since this very point is also
debatable - at least of the
nostradamic production, between
1557 and 1567 since the almanachs quatrains for 1555 are dubious and
are strangely enough translated in English in an almanach for 1562
which shows significant differences with the supposedly original French of the Prognostication pour 1555. |