Armée celtique en Italie vexée
De toutes parts conflit et grande perte:
Romains fuis. Ô Gaule repoussée
Près du Thesin Rubicon pugne incerte.
Celtic army in Italy vexed,
Everywhere, conflict and great losses
Romans flee, to the Gauls repelled,
Near the Thesin Rubicon uncertain battle.
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pugne incerte Rubicon Thesin
| from the latin pugna ,modern french: bataille , battle. diminutive for the french adjective incertain, uncertain. In the Encyclopédie Universelle [1968] we find: Rubicon, aujourd'hui le Pisciatello ou le Fiumicino, fleuve côtier d'Italie, tributaire de l'Adriatique. [Rubicone, today the Pisciatello or the Fiumicino, coastal river on the Adriatic.] The Groelier Encyclopedia CD-ROM 1997, has this to say: Rubicon: historical name for a short, small river in north central Italy that formed the ancient boundary between Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. The present streams of Fiumicino [also named Pisciatello - see above] and Uso have each been identified as the Rubicon. Both flow from the Apennines to the Adriatic Sea between Cesenatico and Rimini. This word as such does not exist in the dictionaries and encyclopedias I have consulted. However, if we split up the word, we have The sin which is the english translation of Le Péché. This, of course, is another riddle that has been placed there for a purpose: we have just seen there were two rivers called Le Rubicon: the Fiumicino/Pisciatello Rubicon and the Uso Rubicon. When he wrote Près du Thesin Rubicon, Nostradamus was simply defining which of the two he was talking about. The translation of The sin being, as we just saw, Le péché, we have here the same consonance as the beginning of Le Pisciatello, and it clearly indicates that the event in question occurred near the Pisciatello Rubicon and not the Uso Rubicon. As we will see, this has been confirmed by history. |
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Interpretation
Near the Pisciatello, called the Rubicon, an uncertain battle...
History
It is probable that, had it not been for World War II, the Pisciatello would have followed its course without much fuss. However, that war has put numerous italian rivers in the foreground. This river was a bridgehead of the german army, hence the determination with which the allies tried to conquer it:
[P.601] The major-general intended to move forward the 1st brigade to the Pisciatello, [Thesin Rubicon] canalized stream that crossed the divisional sector about two miles east of Cesena... the artillery fire growing worse was a sign that, henceforth, the enemy would draw back only by force....Early in the afternoon of the 17, lieut. colonel Bogert who, october 6, had replaced at the head of the 2nd brigade, corporal Gibson, evacuated for health reasons, gave his orders allowing for an attack beyond the Pisciatello...
[P.604] Around midnight, lieut. colonel J.R. Stone [Bell Irving had gone back to his old unit, the Seaforth Highlander] threw a second company in the mêlée. Alerted, Panzer grenadiers were fighting tooth and nail and, at break of day, the Edmonton was fighting an uncertain battle [pugne incerte] for the possession of a 500 square yards bridgehead.
[Translation - Les Canadiens en Italie - Lt. Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson]