by John Crowley
On the fifteenth of that month Doctor Dee made a note in his diary:
About 5 of the clok cam the Polonian prince, Lord Albert Lasky, down from Bissham where he had lodged the night before, being returned from Oxford, whither he had gon of purpose to see the universitye, where he was very honorably used and enterteyned. He had in his company Lord Russell, Sir Philip Sidney, and other gentlemen: he was rowed by the Queene’s men, he had the barge covered with the Queene’s cloth, the Queene’s trumpeters, etc. He cam of purpose to do me honor, for which God be praysed!
It happened that he was standing by his water-stairs when the two broad barges came down the Thames, and one or two small wherries beside attending on them, and pavilions raised on them to keep out the sun and rain. The barges were going down to London, but they pulled up at the house in Mortlake, trumpets blowing and silken flags lifted on the chilly river airs.
—Sent by the Queen, called out Sir Philip, smiling. To hurry us away from that Athens.
You are welcome, gentlemen, Doctor Dee called. Your Grace is very welcome to my humble.
He hurried down the stairs to make his obeisance to the Duke, but the Duke had already leapt nimbly off the barge and swept the hat off his head. He clasped eagerly the doctor’s hand, he bent close to the doctor, his white beard almost grappling with the doctor’s own.
—Believe me I could not have passed these stairs and not stopped, he said. And turning to the barge which the bargemen were tying up: You know these gentlemen.
—Certain ones, yes, very well, said the doctor. He bowed to Sir Philip Sidney. Lord Russell he had seen often at Court, one of the Queen’s young champions, moved by her like a chess knight in the games of chivalry they played.
They were handed out from the barges, and the other gentlemen after them; Doctor Dee showed them the stairs upward with a bow and a warning about the loose stones, then turned to send his son Arthur and Arthur’s sister (who had been peeping from behind their father’s skirts) to run on ahead and tell their mother who had come.
—Tell her, the last hogshead of my Christmas claret, he whispered to Arthur. Tell her, the venison pasties. A barrel of eels too.
He hurried the boy with a pat on his shoulder. This company would expect such hospitality, whether they touched it or not. Doctor Dee mounted the stairs with them.
—I trust Your Grace was honorably used at Oxford.
—Very honorably used. Much hospitality. A gift. Of gloves, he added, and raised his eyebrows, inviting Doctor Dee to share in his mild surprise at this, an article of dress and not a book, a rarity or antiquity of some kind. There were further oddities: at All Souls College the scholars had all acted in a stiff little drama of Dido, and a banquet was put on in the middle of it, where all sat down with Æneas and Queen Dido, to hear Æneas tell the story of Troy, and then a tempest came, just as in Virgil, only the rain was rosewater, and little sweetmeats hailed down on the guests, and sugar snow fell. It had all obviously cost them a good deal of trouble, and the Prince thanked them all in his militare Latinum (as he said, soldier’s Latin, he had never heard such neat Ciceronian periods as the Oxonians turned).
—Did you not once, Sir Doctor (said Sir Philip Sidney, in English), make wonders for a show at Cambridge?
—I did, said Dee, pleased to have it remembered. For Aristophanes his Pax, the Scarabeus flying up to Jupiter’s palace, with a man and a basket of victuals on his back. There were many vain reports, by what art it was done.
—There were disputations too, said the Prince. Lectures.
He had looked forward to these, but they had been poor stuff in his opinion, as formal and rehearsed as the little play of Dido, not what Alasco meant by deep learning.
—I do not love, he said, to hear Aristotle debated.
—They love Aristotle there, said Dee. No one may graduate who has not drunk at that font. Drunk deep.
—It must flow with beer, then. Beer and not learning, for they care little there for learning.
It was the last gentleman out of the boat who said this, in Latin. John Dee turned back to see him alight and mount the stairs, lifting his scholar’s gown.
—This gentleman, said the Prince to Dee, was not well used there. Not well used.
Doctor Dee could not tell if Laski was amused or truly scandalized at the man’s ill treatment. A young Scot whom Doctor Dee knew to be in Sir Philip Sidney’s service stepped to Doctor Dee’s side.
—Permit me to present.
Smiling—as though they knew something which John Dee did not yet know—Sir Philip and the Prince Palatine stood aside to make room for the Doctor to bow to the Italian, and take his hand.
—I was offered a readership at Oxford, Dee said. In my youth.
—They understand neither Aristotle nor anything that is not Aristotle. I call on these gentlemen to witness. And yet once it was famous for learning.
A thick-necked, stiff-backed small man, who put out his chin, perhaps to make up for its weakness. A bantam cock, expecting a fight: that’s what Dee was reminded of.
—They do in some sort despise old learning there, said Dee. The learning that made the place famous. I am sorry for it.
There was more he could say. It was the Puritans at Oxford who had lately driven out the old sciences there, and decimated the libraries, pitching out any book that talked of geometry, or the heavens, or had a red letter in it, as papistical or diabolical or both. Doctor Dee had himself saved priceless things from their fires. But he would not talk of such things in this company. Sir Philip was known to lean to the Puritans; Duke Laski was newly reconverted to the Roman church; this Italian he knew nothing of. He said only:
—Come sir. All you gentlemen. Refresh yourselves. Tell me of your adventures.
At Oxford Dicson had found room to sleep with an acquaintance, Matthew Gwynne; room to stay anyway, they had slept little, sat up long in the mess of Gwynne’s room amid the books and maps and piled dishes and overturned cups whereon candles melted; and late, late, they had crept out on the town like tom-cats, and collided with the watch, and had to run.
With the dawn, the creatures of night sacred to Pluto retreat into their dens, the toad, the basilisk, the owl, and the witch; but the creatures of the light come forth to greet the rising, the cock, the ram, the phoenix, the lynx, eagle, lion; the lupine and the heliotrope open their cups, and turn their faces on him.
Late in the morning Dicson leapt up as though stung, thirsty and anxious. The Italian debated today.
The subject was Aristotle on Substance, and Bruno stood against the Rector of Lincoln College. A good crowd had filled the hall, Laski in the center front and Sidney beside him; Dicson crept in and stood by the wall, his spirit prepared (he hoped) to receive what was said, which was to be impressed truth by truth on the places he had inwardly made ready.
Something went quickly amiss. The Rector was a careful and soft-spoken man; he spent a good deal of time silent between sentences, while the Italian squirmed and sighed in his chair, groaning once aloud, which did not hasten the Rector: then leapt out of his chair when his opponent retired, a boxer leaping into the ring, pushing up his sleeves and talking almost before he stood before them. What he had to say seemed at first to have nothing to do with substance, or with Aristotle. It was about how the heavens are ordered.
In the center of the universe, he said, the midpoint, equidistant from every point upon the outermost and ultimate sphere (beyond which is God alone), is the Earth. A great dung-ball, wherein are collected all the dirt, smuts, uncleannesses, heavinesses, stones, and other corporealities of all the universe: for what is heavy falls naturally to the center, and what is not heavy stays aloft, and rises to the perimeter.
There was laughter, and a rustling of academic gowns. What was the man up to? He had an odd grin fixed on his face, and his arms wove circles as he spoke.
Around this ball Earth, this insignificant fæcal mote, this dot, are seven or eight or nine truly gigantic spheres of some sort o
f crystal such as we have no experience of, spheres whose walls are thick as mountains, wherein or on the sun, moon, and planets are variously implanted, impressed, plastered, knotted, glued, sculptured, or painted. Outsidemost of all is the sphere of the stars, holding in all the rest and the earth too: around which, in a natural spherical perfectly regular and unceasing motion, it spins with incomprehensible speed, a good million miles or more in a minute. It could not be less.
The murmurings were louder now, and there were guffaws. Was he mocking them? There were cries of Ad rem, ad rem! The man had not yet taken up and answered a single one of the Rector’s theses.
—Now (said Bruno, apparently unconscious as yet of the stir) what is the first conclusion we may come to, as to this picture or image or description of the universe, which is, with many additions and qualifications, the one we are presented with by Aristotle, and on which all his physics is considered to depend?
Some unintelligible jesting answers from the hearers, which the Italian ignored.
—Come, sirs. Come. The first and most evident conclusion. Is it not that this picture of the universe is wholly and thoroughly contradictory to common reason, and could not be the universe that God in His infinite greatness and goodness made? Is it not?
Flinging out a hand, as though to show them the mappamundi that he had drawn there in the air:
—If the universe has a center, then the universe has a circumference. If the world has a circumference, it is finite, no it is infinitesimal, no it is in fact nothing at all compared to the incalculable, inexpressible infinity and infinite creativity of God. Aquinas knew this, though he hid it. No universe will be sufficient to the infinite creativity of God that is not itself infinite.
He folded his arms and faced them, speaking louder.
—No circumference, then. And if no circumference, no center. Is this heavy foul stationary torpid impure midden the Earth not the center? No. Neither in nature is it stable nor in logic is it immobile, as witness Copernicus, who has perfectly demonstrated it, though it is not he who first conceived it. Therefore. No circumference, no center; or since its center is no different from its circumference, we may say that the universe is all center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere and the circumference nowhere …
But they in the hall knew now what he was about. Loosened from the bonds of polite discourse, as the earth’s bonds had been loosened in Bruno’s discourse, the scholars began rising from their seats, hooting, calling out insults. Epicurean! Democritist! Schoolman! Cheerculo! Cheercumferenchia! He speaks Latin like a dog. Or a Dago.
Dicson could hardly hear or see. Laski had risen from the chair of honor, and had a hand cupped behind his ear. The scholars were stepping up to the dais, putting questions:
—If earth moves among the stars, and is a star, then either the earth is not corruptible, or the stars are spheres of change and corruption. Is there nowhere any perfection in your universe?
—The universe is perfect, a single, indivisible, infinite monad; and within this monad are conducted an infinite number of perfectly concluded processes of change.
—But but but. If there are no crystal spheres to carry the planets, what causes them to move in circles?
—They move in circles because they choose to. I now turn to the theses of the doctissimus magister …
But the chair was empty. The Rector of Lincoln (expecting a riot, perhaps) had left the hall.
—Good Dr. John Underhill, said Doctor Dee, and pulled at his beard to keep from smiling at the tale. I partly know the man.
—A pig, said Bruno.
—And you, Sir Doctor, said the Prince Alasco, turning his big head with deferential sweetness toward John Dee at the room’s other end. What do you hold, concerning the opinion of my countryman, Canon Koppernigk?
—I have studied his book, said Doctor Dee carefully. His thesis accounts for the appearances. Better than does Ptolemy, who follows Aristotle.
—You agree, then, said Bruno; he was smiling his unsettling smile, the same (Dicson thought) he had smiled at the ’varsity men.
Doctor Dee did not immediately reply. The air grew heavy. It was just at this juncture that the crowd in Oxford had risen, unable to bear more. The men in Doctor Dee’s chamber were still, waiting.
—I agree as to the motions.
—Then you must agree with me against Aristotle on substance. If Copernicus is right, the earth is a star, like the stars Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn that with the earth go around the Sun. And therefore of a like substance. Aristotle as he is understood says no. Copernicus confutes Aristotle on this.
—Copernicus himself does not say so.
—Copernicus did not understand what he wrote. He drew a new heavens. There must be a new earth too.
Sir Philip Sidney crossed his arms, and smiling spoke:
—All the poets will rebel. The stars must turn, the sun must rise and set, for poems to scan. Their rhymes will not bend either to these novelties.
—Then let them join those Oxford pedants. There is more matter for poetry in truth than in false seeming.
—Sir, said Laski. I sat for your disputation. I confess I could understand neither your arguments, nor how they pertain to substance, nor why you were shouted down.
—Copernicus (Bruno said airily) is not known in this country, sir; men here are not used to elucidating his hidden truths. And the doctors who once knew more even than he, who flourished long since at Oxford, their works are now despised, their bones are dug up and scattered. By these polishers of pebbles, these.
A huge spirit had arisen in the man: Doctor Dee could feel it, nearly extruding from his body, vibrating the air of the chamber, abashing and embarrassing the company. He said with great gentleness:
—You will be surprised, sir, that Copernicus’s system is cried in the streets here.
The Italian turned to face him: and seemed for an instant to be replaced where he stood, by a sudden bright fulmination. Then he returned.
—Yes, said Dee, not stepping back, surprised but unalarmed. With the easy deliberate stride a man might use to approach a wary horse, he went to where the Italian stood and touched his arm.
—Cried in the streets, he said. In the almanac of my friend Master Leonard Digges. Will you read it? It will interest you. I have it here, I can find it in a moment. Do you read English?
Bruno’s eyes shifted to the English lords, and away quickly.
—Not well. Not at all. This gentleman though might help me.
He meant Dicson, who stepped forward willingly. Bruno allowed Dee to guide the two of them to a corner of the chamber, where piles of books and libelli bound and unbound stood in unsteady piles on shelves and a deal table.
—Of the making of many books there is no end, the doctor quoted. He rustled and rummaged among the things there; he lifted the lid of a trunk, and Bruno glimpsed manuscripts in thick blackletter; he took a book from a shelf, holding back with a hand its fellows who tried to follow it. A shabby and much-handled small book.
—Prognostication Everlasting, he said. To which is added a description of the heavens, by his son, Thomas, whom I have known and taught man and boy. You will see.
He laid the book upon the table, and stepped away, not however turning his back on the Italian immediately; as though (Dicson thought) he had laid a bone before a mastiff to soothe it.
Bruno opened the book. An emblem of spheres. Sun in the center.
He thought: Who is he? Just when Bruno’s own heated spirit had been drawn out into the room, the English doctor had changed his image for a fountain of limpid water, his garments’ folds the falling streams, face and beard the surmounting foam and spray. Just for an instant. No one else had seen.
He read:
This ball every 24 hours by wonderfull slie and smooth motion rouleth rounde, making with his period our natural daye, whereby it seems to us that the huge infinite immoveable globe should swaye and tourne about.
Dicson labored to t
ranslate this into an Italian less certain than his Latin, moving his hand beside his mouth as though to summon words out of it, e e e. Bruno had already absorbed the page.
The baull of ye earth wherein we move, to the common sorte seemeth greate, and yet compared with the Orbis magnus wherein it is carried, it scarcely retaineth any sensible proportion, so merueilliously is that Orbe of Annuall motion greater than this little dark starre wherin we liue. But that Orbis magnus beinge but as a poynct in respect of the immensity of the immovable heaven, we may easily consider what little portion of gods frame, our Elementare corruptible worlde is …
—Who is he? Bruno asked, and Dicson stopped his stammering to look where Bruno looked. Doctor Dee had turned away to speak privately with the Polonian. Dicson made to speak, but then was abashed, knowing no answer he had would be the answer Bruno sought. Bruno looked down again at the little universe Master Digges had drawn.
Each of the circles around the central sun was labeled: THE ORBE OF MARS. THE ORBE OF SATURNE. And it was Copernicus’s scheme. The only oddity was that the ultimate sphere was not shown as a delimiting circle, as Copernicus had it, but as a scattering of stars filling out the page. This sphere was labeled too, the words arching around over the sphere of Saturn and beneath the stars: THE ORBE OF STARRES FIXED INFINITELY VP EXTENDETH IT SELF IN ALTITVDE SPHERICALLY, AND THEREFORE IS IMMOVABLE THE PALLACE OF FŒLICITYE, GARNISHED WITH PERPETVAL SHININGE GLORIOVS LIGHTES INNVMERABLE, FARRE EXCEEDING OVR SVNNE BOTH IN QVANTITYE AND QVALITYE, THE VERYE COVRTE OF CELESTIALL ANGELLES, DEVOYD OF GREEFE AND REPLENISHED WITH PERFITE ENDLESS JOYE THE HABITACLE FOR THE ELECT.
He closed it.
—He errs.
Dicson, who had not done translating, closed his mouth.