An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature/Galileo with Milton at Torre Del Gallo
Galileo with Milton at Torre Del Gallo
And so by day I gaze and gaze afar,
Into the world whereon I durst not step,
By night the starry realm from whence I drew
Renown unto my name, grief for my life.
But threatens now relentless Destiny
To take e’en that. My eyes are waxing weak,
And if I gaze without the helping lens,
I do but see a glimmering silvery dust.
You, Sire, are young, in life’s heyday, a poet,
Son of the land which dragged its neck away
From grim and chilling clutches of the Church,—
O happy mortal. . . . Are we not myths to ourselves?
At least I haply to you? I plainly showed
What before me Copernicus had found,
What e’en the sages taught in ancient Greece,
That this, our world, has no firm fundament
In starry space, but on predestined path
In a year’s course rotates around the sun,
During the which, like a deft dancing-girl
Twists round its axis as it ranges on,—
And lo, then rose the Holy Church in wrath
And clamoured that I desired to shake belief
In truth of Holy Writ. Joshua, quoth ’a,
Spake once in war: Thou, sun, shalt stay thy course
Up against Gibeon, whence ’tis passing clear
This world of ours turns not, but ’tis the sun
Itself must be twisting about our earth.
Ah, can you know, young man, what folly is?
You know not, but I have quaffed it to the dregs.
When from their pulpits Jesuit Fathers spake
Homilies to the words of Holy Writ
As touching me: Why stand ye there, O men
Of Galilee and gaze aloft?—When they
Bade me deny the truth I e’en had spoken,—
When unto Rome they summoned me to judgment
And they who judged are versed perchance in Scripture
But never in those deathless, starry worlds,—
And when the Holy Father wroth thereat
(Not roused by mishap that befell the Scriptures
But deeming rather that in my dialogue
I play the zany with his affirmations
And quiz him in a sorry figure which
Is called Simplicio in that same tractate)—
When at this long and never-ending trial,
I, sick and vexed by questionings and dicta
Whereat ’tis only possible to scoff,—
When at this trial. I underwent perforce
Examen rigorosum, which is called
Torture in parlance of holy inquisition,—
(As though the deathless law can be o’erturned
When at the end a tortured human worm
Spake Nay it turneth not. I spake thus? Well,
I wot not) Marvel not, O foreign sire,
At an old man, when he remembers, nay,
Remembers not, but clutches at his wounds,—
Wounds, quick and open that words, that phrases surge
Burstingly from his lips, so wild, pell-mell
E’en as thou heardest. All in me is aquiver,
Voice upon lips, and blood in veins, and soul
In body, yet the earth doth turn and turned
Aye, spite of Joshua; and it shall turn
Evermore, spite of Jesuits, and spite
Of Holy Inquisition. . . . And herein
The myth of me . . .
Gaze heavenward, gaze,
Yonder, yea, yonder is the dayspring of
My earthly dolours all . . . in yon white lustres
Dayspring of all my woes, my prisoning
And earthly glory. . . . Weaker grows my gaze
Yon realm shall vanish from me soon. . . . Perchance
Somewhere up yonder lies the solving of
That riddle which is dubbed the life of man.
The Apostles (1911)
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1931. The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 83 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1931. The longest-living author of this work died in 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 55 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
