No More Learning

GALILEO Yes, they'll make money on it. (Makes another bow)
THE PROCURATOR (steps up on the dais) Your Excellency, august signoria! Once
again a glorious page in the great book of human accomplishments is being written in Venetian characters. (Polite applause) A scholar of world renown is presenting to you, and to you alone, a highly salable tube for you to manufacture and market at your pleasure. (Stronger applause) Has it occurred to you that in the event of war this instrument will enable us to recognize the nature and number of the enemy's ships at least two hours before they have a clear view of ours and, in full cognizance of his strength, decide whether to pursue, engage or withdraw? (Loud applause) And now, Your Excellency, august signoria, Mr. Galilei bids you accept this instrument of his invention, this evidence of his genius, from the hands of his charming daughter.
(Music. Virginia steps forward, bows, hands the telescope to the procurator. The doge and the senators mount the dais and look through the tube)
GALILEO (softly) I can't promise to go through with this farce. They think they're getting a profitable gadget, but it's much more than that. Last night I turned the tube on the moon.
SAGREDO What did you see?
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? GALILEO It has no light of its own.
SAGREDO What?
GALILEO I tell you, astronomy has been marking time for a thousand years for lack of a telescope.
SENATOR SAGREDO SENATOR
GALILEO SAGREDO GALILEO SENATOR
Mr. Galilei! You're wanted.
One sees too well with that thing. I'll have to warn my ladies to stop bathing on the roof.
Do you know what the Milky Way consists of? No.
I do.
A thing like that is worth its ten scudi, Mr. Galilei.
(Galileo bows)
VIRGINIA (takes Ludovico to her father) Ludovico wants to congratulate you,
father.
LUDOVICO (embarrassed] Congratulations, sir.
GALILEO I've improved on it.
LUDOVICO So I see, sir. You made the casing red. In Holland it was green. GALILEO (turns to Sagredo) I wonder if I couldn't prove a certain doctrine with
that thing. SAGREDO Watch your step!
THE PROCURATOR Your five hundred scudi are in the bag, Mr. Galilei. GALILEO (paying no attention to him) Of course, I'm always wary of rash
conclusions.
(The doge, a fat, modest man, has approached Galileo and is attempting, with clumsy dignity, to address him)
VIRGINIA LUDOVICO VIRGINIA LUDOVICO VIRGINIA LUDOVICO
Did I do it all right?
It seemed all right to me.
What's the matter?
Oh, nothing. A green casing might have done just as well.
I think they're all very pleased with father.
And I think I'm beginning to understand something about science.
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? 3
January 10, 1610: By means of the telescope Galileo discovers celestial phenomena which prove the Copernican system. Warned by his friend of the possible consequences of his investigations, Galileo affirms his faith in reason.
January ten, sixteen ten: Galileo Galilei abolishes heaven.
Galileo's study in Padua. Night. Galileo and Sagredo, both in heavy overcoats, at the telescope.
? SAGREDO (looking through the telescope, in an undertone) The edge of the crescent is quite irregular, rough and serrated. In the dark part near the luminous edge there are luminous points. They are emerging, one after another. From these points the light spreads out over wider and wider areas and finally merges with the larger luminous part.
GALILEO How do you account for those luminous points? SAGREDO It can't be.
GALILEO But it is. They're mountains.
SAGREDO On a star?
GALILEO Gigantic mountains. Their peaks are gilded by the rising sun while the surrounding slopes are still deep in darkness. You can see the light descending from the highest peaks into the valleys.
SAGREDO But that contradicts all the astronomy of two thousand years. GALILEO True. No mortal has ever seen what you are seeing, except me. You're
the second.
SAGREDO But the moon can't be another earth with mountains and valleys, any
more than the earth can be a planet.
GALILEO The moon can be an earth with mountains and valleys, and the earth can be a planet. Simply another heavenly body, one among thousands. Take another look. Is the dark part of the moon entirely dark?
SAGREDO No. When I look closely, I see a feeble gray light on it.
GALILEO SACREDO GALILEO SAGREDO
What can that light be? ?
It's from the earth.
Nonsense. How can the earth with its mountains and forests and
oceans--a cold body--give light?
GALILEO The same way the moon sheds light. Because both bodies are
illuminated by the sun, that's why they shed light. What the moon is to us we are to the moon. The moon sees us by turns as a crescent, as a half- circle, as full, and then not at all.
SAGREDO GALILEO SAGREDO
Then there's no difference between moon and earth? Apparently not.
Less than ten years ago a man was burned in Rome. His name was Giordano Bruno and he had said the same thing.
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GALILEO I know. But we can see it. Keep your eyes to the tube. What you see is that there's no difference between heaven and earth. This is the tenth of January. Humanity notes in its diary: Heaven abolished.
SAGREDO It's terrifying.
GALILEO I've discovered something else. Perhaps something even more amazing.
MRS. SARTI (comes in) The procurator.
(The procurator rushes in)
THE PROCURATOR I apologize for the late hour. I'd be much obliged if we could talk privately.
GALILEO Mr. Sagredo can hear anything I can hear, Mr. Priuli.
THE PROCURATOR It might embarrass you to have the gentleman hear what has
happened. Unfortunately, it's something quite incredible.
GALILEO Mr. Sagredo is used to hearing incredible things in my presence.
THE PROCURATOR I wonder. (Pointing at the telescope) There it is, your splendid gadget.
You might as well throw it away. It's worthless, absolutely worthless. SAGREDO (who has been restlessly pacing the floor) What do you mean?
THE PROCURATOR Do you realize that this invention of yours, "the fruit of seventeen
years of patient labor," is for sale on every street corner in Italy for a couple of scudi? Made in Holland, I might add. At this very moment a Dutch freighter is unloading five hundred telescopes in the harbor.
GALILEO You don't say.
THE PROCURATOR Your equanimity, sir, is beyond me.
SAGREDO I fail to see what's troubling you. Let me tell you that just in these last few
days Mr. Galilei--with this very instrument--has made the most
revolutionary discoveries concerning heavenly bodies.
GALILEO (laughing) Have a look for yourself, Priuli.
THE PROCURATOR Let me tell you that after having Mr. Galilei's salary doubled on the
strength of this worthless gadget I'm quite satisfied with the discovery I've already made. It's sheer accident that when the gentlemen of the signoria first looked through your tube, confident of having acquired something for the republic that could be manufactured only here, they failed to see--seven times magnified--a common peddler on the next corner hawking that same tube for a song. (Galileo roars with laughter)
SAGREDO Dear Mr. Priuli, I may not be able to judge the instrument's value to the economy, but its value to philosophy is so enormous that . . .
THE PROCURATOR To philosophy! What business has Mr. Galilei, a mathematician, meddling with philosophy? Mr. Galilei, you once invented a very respectable pump for the city; your irrigation system functions. The weavers, too, are very pleased with your machine. How on earth could I have anticipated anything like this?
GALILEO Not so fast, Priuli. Sea routes are still long, unsafe and expensive. We lack a dependable clock in the sky. A guide to navigation. I have reason to believe that with the telescope we can very clearly perceive certain stars with very regular motions. New star charts, Mr. Priuli, could save the shipping interests millions of scudi.
THE PROCURATOR Forget it. I've heard more than enough. In return for my kindness you've made me the laughingstock of the city. I'll be remembered as the procurator who fell for a worthless telescope. You have every reason to laugh. You've got your five hundred scudi. But I'm telling you, and I speak as an honest man: This world makes me sick! (He leaves, banging the door behind him)
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? GALILEO He's rather likable when he gets angry. Did you hear what he said; A world where you can't do business makes him sick.
SAGREDO Did you know about the Dutch instruments?
GALILEO Of course. From hearsay. But the one I made for those skinflints in the
signoria is twice as good. How can I do my work with the bailiff at the door? And Virginia will need her trousseau soon, she's not bright. Besides, I like to buy books, and not only about physics, and I like to eat well. I get my best ideas over a good meal. A rotten time to live in! They weren't paying me as much as the teamster who carts their wine barrels. Four cords of firewood for two courses in mathematics. I've wormed five hundred scudi out of them, but I've got debts, some of them twenty years old. Give me five years of leisure and I'll prove everything. Let me show you something else.
SAGREDO (hesitates to go to the telescope) I almost think I'm afraid, Galileo.
GALILEO I want to show you a milky-white patch of luminous mist in the galaxy.
Tell me what it's made of.
SAGREDO Why, stars, countless stars.
GALILEO In the constellation of Orion alone there are five hundred fixed stars. Those
are the many worlds, the countless other worlds, the stars beyond stars that the man they burned talked about. He didn't see them, but he knew they would be there.
SAGREDO Even if our earth is a star, it's still a long way to Copernicus' contention that the earth revolves around the sun. There isn't any star in the heavens with another revolving around it. And the earth, you'll have to admit, has the moon revolving around it.
GALILEO Sagredo, I wonder. I've been wondering for two days. There's Jupiter. (He adjusts the telescope) Now, near it there are four smaller stars that you can only make out through the tube. I saw them on Monday but I didn't
pay too much attention to their positions. Yesterday I looked again. I could have sworn that all four had moved. I recorded their positions. Now they're different again. What's that now? There were four of them. (Getting excited) You look!
SAGREDO I see three.
GALILEO Where's the fourth? Here are the tables. We must compute the
movements they can have made. (Agitated, they sit down to work. The stage turns dark, but on a cyclorama Jupiter and its satellites remain visihle. When it grows light again, they are still sitting there in their winter coats
GALILEO Now we have proof. The fourth must have moved behind Jupiter where we can't see it.
There you have a star with another revolving around it.
SAGREDO But the crystal sphere that Jupiter is fastened to?
GALILEO Where is it indeed? How can Jupiter be fastened to anything if other
stars revolve around it? There is no scaffolding in the sky, there's nothing
holding the universe up! There you have another sun!
SAGREDO Calm down. You're thinking too fast.
GALILEO Fast, hell! Man, get excited! You're seeing something that nobody ever
saw before. They were right!
SAGREDO Who? The Copernicans?
GALILEO Yes, and you know who. The whole world was against them, and
yet they were right. That's something for Andrea! (Beside himself, he runs to
the door and shouts) Mrs. Sarti! Mrs. Sarti! SAGREDO Galileo, please calm yourself!
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? GALILEO Sagredo, please get excited! Mrs. Sarti!
SAGREDO (turning the telescope aside) Will you stop yelling like a fool?
? GALILEO Will you stop standing there like a stockfish whenwe've discovered the truth? SAGREDO I'm not standing here like a stockfish, I'm trembling
for fear it's the truth. GALILEO What?
SAGREDO Have you taken leave of your senses? Don't you realize what you're getting into if what you see is really true? And if you go shouting all over town that the earth is a planet
and not the center of the universe?
GALILEO Yes, and that the whole enormous cosmos with all its stars doesn't revolve around our tiny earth, as anyone could have guessed anyway.
SAGREDO So that there's nothing but stars! --But where does that put God? GALILEO What do you mean?
SAGREDO God! Where's God?
GALILEO (furious) Not out there! Any more than He'd be on earth if somebody
looking for Him here, SAGREDO Where is God then?
out there started
Am I a theologian? I'm a mathematician.
First of all you're a human being. And I ask you: Where is God in your world system?
GALILEO
SAGREDO
GALILEO
SAGREDO (shouting) As the man who was burned said?
GALILEO SAGREDO GALILEO SAGREDO
As the man who was burned said!
That's why he was burned! Less than ten years ago!
Because he couldn't prove it! Because all he could do was say so! Mrs. Galileo, I know you're a clever man. For three years in Pisa and
Sarti!
Inside us or nowhere!
seventeen here in Padua you've patiently instructed hundreds of students in the Ptolemaic system as advocated by the church and confirmed by the scriptures on which the
church is grounded. Like Copernicus you thought it was wrong, but you taught it. GALILEO Because I couldn't prove anything.
SAGREDO (incredulous) You think that makes a difference?
GALILEO All the difference in the world! Look here, Sagredo! I believe in man and that means I believe in reason. Without that belief I wouldn't have the strength to get out of bed in the morning.
? SAGREDO Then let me tell you this: I don't believe in reason. Forty years' experience has taught me that human beings are not accessible to reason. Show them a comet with a red tail, put dark fear into them, and they'll rush out of their houses and break their legs. But make a reasonable statement, prove it with seven good reasons, and they'll just laugh at you.
GALILEO That's all wrong and it's slander. I don't see how you can love science if you believe that. Only the dead are impervious to argument.
SAGREDO How can you mistake their contemptible cunning for reason?
GALILEO I'm not talking about their cunning. I know they call a donkey a horse when they're
selling and a horse a donkey when they're buying. That's their cunning. But the old woman with calloused hands who gives her mule an extra bunch of hay the night before setting out on a trip; the sea captain who allows for storms and doldrums when he lays in his stores; the child who puts on his cap when he realizes that it may rain--these people are my hope, they accept the law of cause and effect. Yes, I believe in the gentle force of reason, in the long run no one can resist it. Nobody can watch me drop (He lets a pebble fall from bis band to the floor) a pebble and say: It doesn't fall. Nobody can do that. The seduction of proof is too strong. Most people will succumb to it and in time they all will.
Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.
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? MRS. SARTI (comes in) Did you want something, Mr. Galilei?
GALILEO (back at the telescope, scribbling notes, very kindly} Yes, I want Andrea.
MRS. SARTI Andrea? But he's in bed, he's sound asleep.
GALILEO Can't you wake him?
MRS. SARTI What do you want him for, may I ask?
GALILEO I want to show him something that'll please him. He's going to see something that no
one but us has ever seen since the earth began.
MRS. SARTI Something through your tube?
GALILEO Something through my tube, Mrs. Sarti.
MRS. SARTI And for that you want me to wake him in the middle of the night? Are you out of
your mind? He needs his sleep. I wouldn't think of waking him. GALILEO Not a chance?
MRS. SARTI Not a chance.
GALILEO Mrs. Sarti, in that case maybe you can help me. You see, a question has come up that
we can't agree on, perhaps because we've read too many books. It's a question about the sky, involving the stars. Here it is: Which seems more likely, that large bodies turn around small bodies or small bodies around large ones?
MRS. SARTI (suspiciously) I never know what you're up to, Mr. Galilei. Is this a serious question or are you pulling my leg again?
GALILEO A serious question.
MRS. SARTI Then I can give you a quick answer. Do I serve your
dinner or do you serve mine?
GALILEO You serve mine. Yesterday it was burned.
MRS. SARTI And why was it burned? Because you made me get your shoes while I was
cooking it. Didn't I bring you your shoes? GALILEO I presume you did.
MRS. SARTI Because it's you who went to school and can pay.
GALILEO I see. I see there's no difficulty. Good morning, Mrs. Sarti.
(Mrs. Sarti, amused, goes out]
GALILEO And such people are supposed not to be able to grasp the truth? They
snatch at it.
(The matins bell has begun to peal. In comes Virginia in a cloak, carrying a shaded candle]
VIRGINIA GALILEO VIRGINIA
GALILEO Clear.
VIRGINIA GALILEO VIRGINIA GALILEO
May I look through it?
What for? ( Virginia has no answer) It's not a toy.
I know, father.
By the way, the tube's a big flop. You'll hear all about it soon. It's being sold on the
Good morning, father. Up so early?
I'm going to matins with Mrs. Sarti. Ludovico will be there too. How was the night, father?
street for three scudi, it was invented in Holland.
VIRGINIA Didn't you find anything new in the sky with it?
GALILEO Nothing for you. Only a few dim specks on the left side of a big star, I'll have to
find a way of calling attention to them. (Speaking to Sagredo over his daughter's head) Maybe I'll call them the "Medicean Stars" to please the grand duke of Florence. (Again to
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Virginia) It may interest you, Virginia, to know that we'll probably move to Florence.
I've written to ask if the grand duke can use me as court mathematician. VIRGINIA (radiant) At court?
SAGREDO Galileo!
GALILEO I need leisure, old friend. I need proofs. And I want the fleshpots. With a
position like that I won't have to ram the Ptolemaic system down the throats of private students, I'll have time--time, time, time, time! --to work out my proofs. What I've got now isn't enough. It's nothing, it's just bits and pieces. I can't stand up to the whole world with that. There's still no proof that any heavenly body revolves around the sun. But I'm going to find the proofs, proofs for everybody from Mrs. Sarti to the pope. The only thing that worries me is that the court may not want me.
VIRGINIA Oh, I'm sure they'll take you, father, with your new stars and all.
GALILEO Go to your mass. (Virginia leaves)
GALILEO I'm not used to writing letters to important people. (He hands Sagredo a letter) Do you
think this will do?
SAGREDO (reading aloud the end of the letter which Galileo has handed him) "Withal I am
yearning for nothing so much as to be nearer to Your Highness, the rising sun which
will illuminate this age. " The grand duke of Florence is nine years old. GALILEO I know. I see, you think my letter is too servile. I wonder if it's servile
enough, not too formal, as if I were lacking in genuine devotion. A more restrained letter might be all right for someone with the distinction of having proved the truth of Aristotle; not for me. A man like me can only get a halfway decent position by crawling on his belly. And you know I despise men whose brains are incapable of filling their stomachs.
(Mrs. Sarti and Virginia walk past the two men on their way to mass)
SAGREDO Don't go to Florence, Galileo. Why not?
SAGREDO Because it's ruled by monks.
GALILEO There are distinguished scholars at the Florentine court.
SAGREDO Toadies.
GALILEO I'll take them by the scruff of their necks and drag them to my tube. Even monks
are human beings, Sagredo. Even monks can be seduced by proofs. Copernicus-- don't forget that--wanted them to trust his figures, I'm only asking them to trust the evidence of their eyes. When truth is too weak to defend itself, it has to attack. I'll take them by the scruff of their necks and make them look through the tube.
SAGREDO Galileo, you're on a dangerous path. It's bad luck when a man sees the truth. And delusion when he believes in the rationality of the human race. Who do we say walks with open eyes? The man who's headed for perdition.