WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 1, No. 16: February 16, 2022
Remembering Galileo on His Birthday: February
15, 1564
“Galileo’s head was on the block.
His crime was looking up the truth.”
à The Indigo Girls: Galileo (1992)
Editor’s Note
The Italian astronomer Galileo
(1564-1642) has been a favorite hero of mine since my childhood days. Not only
did he have the courage to speak truth to power in his own time, but his use
and popularization of the astronomical telescope paved the way for the
development of other types of telescopes, including the small monocular
telescope that I wear around my neck to enhance my own vision of the everyday
world around me.
I look forward to the day when
Galileo will be fully appreciated for his courageous efforts to build bridges
of understanding between philosophy, religion, and science. I would gladly cast
my vote for his canonization by popular acclaim! Let his feast day be inscribed
as January 8 (the day of his passage over the rainbow bridge), and let
the feast day of his scientifically-inclined daughter, Sr. Maria Celeste (1600-1634),
be inscribed as April 2 (the day of her own passage over the rainbow
bridge). Vox populi, vox Dei! 😊
In this week’s feature, I have
included a brief summary of Galileo’s life and legacy; a notice of his visit
with the English poet John Milton; an excerpt from his most famous book, the Starry
Messenger, in which he describes his telescopic observations of the
Milky Way; and finally, a classic poem about the Milky Way and a quotation from
Cicero about the Milky Way, both of which reflect the age-old belief that the
Milky Way is like a “rainbow bridge” that is followed by the souls of the
blessed after their earthly lives are done.
“The Story of Galileo”
Excerpted from an Expanded 19th-Century Edition of Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs
The most eminent men of science
and philosophy of the day did not escape the watchful eye of this cruel
despotism. Galileo, the chief astronomer and mathematician of his age, was the
first who used the telescope successfully in solving the movements of the
heavenly bodies. He discovered that the Sun is the center of motion around
which the Earth and various planets revolve. For making this great discovery
Galileo was brought before the Inquisition, and for a while was in great danger
of being put to death.
After a long and bitter review
of Galileo's writings, in which many of his most important discoveries were
condemned as errors, the charge of the Inquisitors went on to declare, “That
you, Galileo, have upon account of those things which you have written and
confessed, subjected yourself to a strong suspicion of heresy in this Holy
Office, by believing, and holding to be true, a doctrine which is false, and
contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture – viz., that the Sun is the center
of the orb of the Earth, and does not move from the east to the west; and that
the Earth moves, and is not the center of the world."
In order to save his life.
Galileo admitted that he was wrong in thinking that the Earth revolved around
the Sun, and swore that – "For the future, I will never more say, or
assert, either by word or writing, anything that shall give occasion for a like
suspicion." But immediately after taking this forced oath he is said to
have whispered to a friend standing near, "The Earth moves, for all that."
John Milton and Galileo
In this classic painting, the
English poet John Milton (left) visited Galileo (right) in 1638, while the
latter was under house arrest at his villa at Arcetri, Italy.
Editor’s
Note: In his
1644 address to the English Parliament, Milton spoke out boldly against
censorship in England, citing his visit to Galileo six years earlier:
“There it
was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisoner to the
Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise then the Franciscan and
Dominican licensers thought.”
à John Milton
(1608-1674): Areopagitica (1644)
An Excerpt from Galileo’s Starry Messenger (1610)
The next object which I have
observed is the essence or substance of the Milky Way. By the aid of a
telescope any one may behold this in a manner which so distinctly appeals to
the senses that all the disputes which have tormented philosophers through so
many ages are exploded at once by the irrefragable evidence of our eyes, and we
are freed from wordy disputes upon this subject, for the Galaxy is nothing else
but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters. Upon whatever
part of it you direct the telescope straightway a vast crowd of stars presents
itself to view; many of them are tolerably large and extremely bright, but the
number of small ones is quite beyond determination.
“The Milky Way” (Anonymous)
Evening has
come; and across the skies —
Out through
the darkness that, quivering, dies —
Beautiful,
broad, and white,
Fashioned of
many a silver ray
Stolen out
of the ruins of Day,
Grows the pale
bridge of the Milky Way,
Built by the
architect Night.
Dim with
shadows, and bright with stars,
Hung like
gold lights on invisible bars
Stirred by
the wind's spent breath,
Rising on
cloud-shapen pillars of grey,
Perfect it
stands, like a tangible way
Binding
tomorrow with yesterday,
Reaching to
Life from Death.
Dark show
the heavens on either side;
Soft flows
the blue in a waveless tide
Under the
silver arch;
Never a
footstep is heard below,
Echoing
earthward, as measured and slow,
Over the
bridge the still hours go
Bound on
their trackless march.
Is it a
pathway leading to Heaven
Over Earth's
sin-clouds, rent and riven
With its
supernal light,
Crossed by
the souls of the loved who have flown
Stilly away
from our arms, and alone
Up to the beautiful,
great, white Throne
Pass in the
hush of night?
Is it the
road that our wild dreams walk,
Far beyond
reach of our waking talk,
Out to the
vague and grand
Far beyond
Fancy's uttermost range,
Out to the
Dream-world of marvel and change,
Out to the
mystic, unreal and strange —
Out to the
Wonderland?
Is it the
way that the angels take
When they
come down by night to wake
Over the
slumbering Earth?
Is it the
way the faint stars go back,
Driven by
insolent Day from his track
Into the
distant mysterious Black
Where their
bright souls had birth?
What may it
be? Who may certainly say?
Over the
shadowy Milky Way
No human
foot hath trod.
Aeons have
passed; but unsullied and white,
Still it
stands, fair as a rainbow of night,
Held like a
promise above our dark sight,
Guiding our
thoughts to God.
This infrared photo of the Milky
Way features the galactic core at its center. It was taken by NASA’s Spitzer
Space Telescope in 2006. (Photo Credit: Public Domain)
Chapter 8 from Scipio’s Dream
By Cicero (106-43 BCE)
But rather, my Scipio – like your grandfather
here, like me your sire – follow justice and natural affection, which though
great in the case of parents and kinsfolk, is greatest of all in relation to
our fatherland. Such is the life that leads to heaven and to this company of
those who have now lived their lives and released from their bodies dwell in
that place which you can see," — now that place was a circle conspicuous
among the fires of heaven by the surpassing whiteness of its glowing light — "which
place you mortals, as you have learned from the Greeks, call the Milky
Way." And as I surveyed them from this point, all the other heavenly
bodies appeared to be glorious and wonderful, — now the stars were such as we
have never seen from this Earth; and such was the magnitude of them all as we
have never dreamed; and the least of them all was that planet [the Moon], which
farthest from the heavenly sphere and nearest to our Earth, was shining with
borrowed light, but the spheres of the stars easily surpassed the Earth in
magnitude — already the Earth itself appeared to me so small, that it grieved
me to think of our empire, with which we cover but a point, as it were, of its
surface.
“I call on the resting soul of Galileo,
King of night vision, king of insight.”
à The Indigo Girls: Galileo (1992)
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