Chapter LXXXVI: French

Par les deux testes, & trois bras separez,
La grand Cité sera par eaux vexée;
Des Grands d’entre eux par esgarez,
Par teste _Perse_ _Byzance_ fort pressée.

English.

Divided in two heads and parted into three arms,
The great City shall be troubled with Waters,
Some great ones among them scattered by banishment,
By a _Persian_ head _Byzance_ shall be sore oppressed.

ANNOT.

This Prophecy containeth three things, the first is an Inundation by which _Paris_ is threatened, for without doubt he meaneth here that City, at the head of which the River _Seine_ is divided in two heads, and makes an Island where the Cathedral Church and the Palace are situated, and then parted into three branches, one of which runneth by the Church of the _Augustines_, the other by the _Quay_ of _la Megisserie_, and the third passeth under the great Hospital; this City then is threatned here of an Inundation, to which it is very subject, by reason of the lowness of her situation, and the confluence of several Rivers that meet at the head of it. The second part of the Prophecy hinteth that at that time, some great ones of that City shall be banished; and the third, that _Constantinople_, which was anciently called _Byzantium_; or rather the great Turk by a figure of Rhetorick, called _Synecdoche_, shall be much oppressed by the _Persians_.