Tycho Brahe - The Nobel Astronomer - Including a History of Astronomy, a Biography of Brahe and his Discoveries

Various

• Publisher: Vintage Astronomy Classics
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473320390
• eBook ISBN: 9781528765923
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Astronomy & Astrophysics

This fascinating biography of Tycho Brahe delves into the life and work of one of the most remarkable men in the history of Astronomy, from how he lost his nose in a duel to the castle he turned into a scientific observatory and became a Mecca for learned men across Europe.

TYCHO BRAHE

I

They thought him a magician, Tycho Brahe,

Who lived on that strange island in the Sound,

Nine miles from Elsinore.

His legend reached

The Mermaid Inn the year that Shakespeare died.

Fynes Moryson had brought his travellers' tales

Of Wheen, the heart-shaped isle where Tycho made

His great discoveries, and, with Jeppe, his dwarf,

And flaxen-haired Christine, the peasant girl,

Dreamed his great dreams for five-and-twenty years.

For there he lit that lanthorn of the law,

Uraniborg; that fortress of the truth,

With Pegasus flying above its loftiest tower,

While, in its roofs, like wide enchanted eyes

Watching, the brightest windows in the world,

Opened upon the stars.

Nine miles from Elsinore, with all those ghosts,

There's magic enough in that! But white-cliffed Wheen,

Six miles in girth, with crowds of hunchback waves

Crawling all round it, and those moonstruck windows,

Held its own magic, too; for Tycho Brahe

By his mysterious alchemy of dreams

Had so enriched the soil, that when the king

Of England wished to buy it, Denmark asked

A price too great for any king on earth.

"Give us," they said, "in scarlet cardinal's cloth

Enough to cover it, and, at every corner,

Of every piece, a right rose-noble too;

Then all that kings can buy of Wheen is yours.

Only," said they, "a merchant bought it once;

And, when he came to claim it, goblins flocked

All round him, from its forty goblin farms,

And mocked him, bidding him take away the stones

That he had bought, for nothing else was his."

These things were fables. They were also true.

They thought him a magician, Tycho Brahe,

The astrologer, who wore the mask of gold.

Perhaps he was. There's magic in the truth;

And only those who find and follow its laws

Can work its miracles.

Tycho sought the truth

From that strange year in boyhood when he heard

The great eclipse foretold; and, on the day

Appointed, at the very minute even,

Beheld the weirdly punctual shadow creep

Across the sun, bewildering all the birds

With thoughts of evening.

Picture him, on that day,

The boy at Copenhagen, with his mane

Of thick red hair, thrusting his freckled face

Out of his upper window, holding the piece

Of glass he blackened above his candle-flame

To watch that orange ember in the sky

Wane into smouldering ash.

He whispered there,

"So it is true. By searching in the heavens,

Men can foretell the future."

In the street

Below him, throngs were babbling of the plague

That might or might not follow.

He resolved

To make himself the master of that deep art

And know what might be known.

He bought the books

Of Stadius, with his tables of the stars.

Night after night, among the gabled roofs,

Climbing and creeping through a world unknown

Save to the roosting stork, he learned to find

The constellations, Cassiopeia's throne,

The Plough still pointing to the Polar Star,

The sword-belt of Orion. There he watched

The movements of the planets, hours on hours,

And wondered at the mystery of it all.

All this he did in secret, for his birth

Was noble, and such wonderings were a sign

Of low estate, when Tycho Brahe was young;

And all his kinsmen hoped that Tycho Brahe

Would live, serene as they, among his dogs

And horses; or, if honour must be won,

Let the superfluous glory flow from fields

Where blood might still be shed; or from those courts

Where statesmen lie. But Tycho sought the truth.

So, when they sent him in his tutor's charge

To Leipzig, for such studies as they held

More worthy of his princely blood, he searched

The Almagest; and, while his tutor slept,

Measured the delicate angles of the stars,

Out of his window, with his compasses,

His only instrument. Even with this rude aid

He found so many an ancient record wrong

That more and more he burned to find the truth.

One night at home, as Tycho searched the sky,

Out of his window, compasses in hand,

Fixing one point upon a planet, one

Upon some loftier star, a ripple of laughter

Startled him, from the garden walk below.

He lowered his compass, peered into the dark

And saw—Christine, the blue-eyed peasant girl,

With bare brown feet, standing among the flowers.

She held what seemed an apple in her hand;

And, in a voice that Aprilled all his blood,

The low soft voice of earth, drawing him down

From those cold heights to that warm breast of Spring,

A natural voice that had not learned to use

The false tones of the world, simple and clear

As a bird's voice, out of the fragrant darkness called,

"I saw it falling from your window-ledge!

I thought it was an apple, till it rolled

Over my foot.

It's heavy. Shall I try

To throw it back to you?"

Tycho saw a stain

Of purple across one small arched glistening foot.

"Your foot Is bruise...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Brief History of Astronomy
• The Sun - A Poem by Alfred Noyes
• Tycho Brahe
• Brahe - A Poem by Alfred Noyes