WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell
(@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 3, No. 17: February 14, 2024
Remembering Galileo on His 460th Birthday:
February 15, 1564
An Introductory Note by the Editor
The Italian astronomer Galileo
Galilei (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 pioneering 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, science, and theology – a trio of disciplines that should
be chanting in three-part harmony as they collectively uphold the foundations
of our emerging global civilization.
It is also time for the various
branches of Christendom to celebrate Galileo’s life and legacy in a tangible
way by adding him to their calendars of saints. I would wholeheartedly support Galileo’s
canonization! 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, Virginia (a/k/a Sr. Maria Celeste,
1600-1634), be inscribed as April 2 (the day of her own passage over the
rainbow bridge). Vox populi, vox Dei! = The voice of the people is the voice
of God! 😊
In this week’s feature, I have
included an invocation to Urania, the Muse of astronomy, penned by John Milton
(who met Galileo at his Italian villa while the great astronomer was under
house arrest there); a brief summary of Galileo’s life and legacy; an excerpt
from his most famous book, the Starry Messenger, in which he
describes his telescopic observations of the Milky Way; a classic poem about
the Milky Way; and a quotation from Cicero about the Milky Way. Both of these
“galactic” pieces reflect the age-old belief that the Milky Way is like a
“rainbow bridge” that is followed by the souls of the blessed (like Galileo and
Virginia!) after their earthly lives are done. We conclude this week’s
reflections with a few short reflections and two concluding poems about Urania
and the stars that she shepherds across the night sky.
From Paradise Lost: Book 7, Lines 1-20
By John Milton (1608-1674)
Descend from
Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly
thou art called, whose voice divine
Following,
above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the
flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning,
not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the
Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old
Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,
Before the
hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with
eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy
sister, and with her didst play
In presence
of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy
celestial song. Up led by thee
Into the
Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly
guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy
tempering: with like safety guided down
Return me to
my native element:
Lest from
this flying steed unreined, (as once
Bellerophon,
though from a lower clime,)
Dismounted,
on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous
there to wander, and forlorn.
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. (Image Credit:
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
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:
Areopagitica (1644)
“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."
“This is the celebrated
Galileo, who was in the Inquisition for six years, and put to the torture, for
saying, that the Earth moved. The moment he was set at liberty, he looked up to
the sky and down to the ground, and, stamping with his foot, in a contemplative
mood, said, ‘Eppur si muove,’ that is, ‘Still it moves,’ meaning the Earth.”
à Giuseppe
Baretti (1719-1789): The Italian Library (1757)
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 anyone 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.
In this digital image, Galileo’s
daughter, Virginia, is looking up at the Milky Way in a clear, dark sky. She
corresponded extensively with her father after entering a convent during her
teenage years. (Image Credit: The Editor -- @RHCLambengolmo)
Chapter 8 from Scipio’s Dream
By Marcus Tullius 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.
A Concluding Reflection by the Editor
(Spoken in Dialogue with S. A. Sonnenschein, His Anam Cara,
on 2/12/2024)
“Music is
the language of creation, for in the beginning, the One sang the worlds into
existence, with all their shining hosts & forms of life. We are a part of
that song.” (See Job 38:1-7.)
“Stars”
By Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall (1883-1922)
Now in the
West the slender Moon lies low,
And now
Orion glimmers through the trees,
Clearing the
Earth with even pace and slow,
And now the
stately-moving Pleiades,
In that soft
infinite darkness overhead
Hang
jewel-wise upon a silver thread.
And all the
lonelier stars that have their place,
Calm lamps
within the distant southern sky,
And
planet-dust upon the edge of space,
Look down
upon the fretful world, and I
Look up to
outer vastness unafraid
And see the
stars which sang when Earth was made.
“Urania”
By Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
She smiles
and smiles, and will not sigh,
While we for
hopeless passion die;
Yet she
could love, those eyes declare,
Were but men
nobler than they are.
Eagerly once
her gracious ken
Was turned
upon the sons of men;
But light
the serious visage grew—
She looked,
and smiled, and saw them through.
Our petty
souls, our strutting wits,
Our labored,
puny passion-fits—
Ah, may she
scorn them still, till we
Scorn them
as bitterly as she!
Yet show her
once, ye heavenly Powers,
One of some
worthier race than ours!
One for
whose sake she once might prove
How deeply
she who scorns can love.
His eyes be
like the starry lights;
His voice
like sounds of summer nights;
In all his
lovely mien let pierce
The magic of
the universe!
And she to
him will reach her hand,
And gazing
in his eyes will stand,
And know her
friend, and weep for glee,
And cry,
Long, long I've looked for thee!
Then will
she weep—with smiles, till then
Coldly she
mocks the sons of men.
Till then
her lovely eyes maintain
Their pure,
unwavering, deep disdain.
In this digital image, Urania,
the Muse of Astronomy, is playing her flute on a starlit night. According to
ancient tradition, she has been conducting the Music of the Spheres ever since
the beginning of time;, and she is a distinguished member of the Heavenly Court
in the Empyrean Realm. (Image Credit: The Editor -- @RHCLambengolmo)
“L’amor che muove il Sole e l’altre stelle.”
“The love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”
à Dante (1265-1321): Paradiso
XXXIII: 145
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.