Kepler

IV Harmonice Mundi

Loretoplatz

Hradcany Hill

Prague

Ash Wednesday 1605

David Fabricius: in Friesland

Honoured friend! you may abandon your search for a new theory of Mars: it is established. Yes, my book is done, or nearly. I have spent so much pains on it that I could have died ten times. But with God's help I have held out, and I have come so far that I can be satisfied and rest assured that the new astronomy truly is born. If I do not positively rejoice, it is not due to any doubts as to the truth of my discoveries, but rather to a vision that has all at once opened before me of the profound effects of what I have wrought. My friend, our ideas of the world amp; its workings shall never be the same again. This is a withering thought, and the cause in me of a sombre amp; reflective mood, in keeping with the general on this day. I enclose my wife's recipe for Easter cake as promised.

You, a colleague in arms, will know how things stand with me. Six years I have been in the heat amp; clamour of battle, my head down, hacking at the particular; only now may I stand back to take the wider view. That I have won, I do not doubt, as I say. My concern is, what ma

My aim in the Astronomia nova is, to show that the heavenly machine is not a divine, living being, but a kind of clockwork (and he who believes that a clock has a soul, attributes to the work the maker's glory), insofar as nearly all the manifold motions are caused by a simple magnetic amp; material force, just as all the motions of the clock are caused by a simple weight. Yet, and most importantly, it is not the form or appearance of this celestial clockwork which concerns me primarily, but the reality of it. No longer satisfied, as I believe astronomy has been for milleniums, with the mathematical representation of planetary movement, I have sought to explain these movements ßom their physical causes. No one before me has ever attempted such a thing; no one has ever before framed his thoughts in this way.

Why, sir, you have a son! This is a great surprise to me. I put aside this letter briefly, having some pressing matters to attend to-my wife is ill again-and in the meantime from Wittenberg one Joha

Vale Joha

Wenzel House Prague November 1607

Hans Geo. Herwart von Hohenburg: at München

Entshuldigen Sie, my dear good sir, for my long delay in plying to your latest, most welcome letter. Matters at court devour my time amp; energies, as always. His Majesty becomes daily more capricious. At times he will forget my name, and look at me with that frown, which all who know him know so well, as if he does not recognise me at all; then suddenly will come an urgent summons, and I must scamper up to the palace with my star charts amp; astrological tables. For he puts much i

In this atmosphere, the New Star of three years past caused a mighty commotion, which still persists. There is talk, as you would expect, of universal conflagration and the Judgment Day. The least that will be settled for, it seems, is the coming of a great new king: nova Stella, novus rex (this last a view which no doubt Matthias encourages!). Of course, I must produce much wordage on this matter also. It is a painful amp; a

My position is delicate. Rudolph is fast in the hands of wizards amp; all ma

My salary, need I say, is badly in arrears. I estimate that I am owed by now some 2,000 florins. I have scant hope of ever seeing the debt paid. The royal coffers are almost exhausted by the Emperor's mania for collecting, as well as by the war with the Turks and his efforts to protect his territories against his turbulent relatives. It pains me to be dependent upon the revenues from my wife's modest fortune. My hungry stomach looks up like a little dog to the master who once fed it. Yet, as ever, I am not despondent, but put my trust in God amp; my science. The weather here is atrocious.