No More Learning

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.
13
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)
? 14
? 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!
15
? 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.
16
? 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
17
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. How can the mighty leave a man at large who knows the truth, even if it's only about the remotest stars? Do you think the pope will hear your truth when you tell him he's wrong? No, he'll hear only one thing, that you've said he's wrong. Do you think he will calmly write in his diary: January 10, Heaven abolished? How can you want to leave the republic with the truth in your pocket and walk straight into the trap of the monks and princes with your tube in your hands? You may be very skeptical in your science, but you're as gullible as a child about anything that looks like a help in pursuing it. You may not believe in Aristotle, but you believe in the grand duke of Florence. A moment ago when I saw
? 18
? you at your tube looking at the new stars I thought I saw you on a flaming pyre and when you said you believed in proofs I smelted burnt flesh. I love science, but I love you more, my friend, don't go to Florence!
GALILEO If they'll have me I'll go-
(On a curtain appears the last page of the letter)
In assigning the sublime name of the Medicean line to these stars newly discovered by me I am fully aware that when gods and heroes were elevated to the starry skies they were thereby glorified, but that in the present case it is the stars that will be glorified by receiving the name of the Medici. With this I recommend myself as one among the number of your most faithful and obedient servants, who holds it the highest honor to have been born your subject. Withal I yearn for nothing so much as to be nearer to Your Highness, the rising sun which will illuminate this age
? 19
? 4
Galileo has exchanged the Venetian republic for the court of Florence. The discoveries he has made with the help of the telescope are met with disbelief by the court scholars.
The old says: What I've always done I'll always do. The new says: If you're useless you must go.
Galileo's house in Florence. Mrs. Sarti is getting Galileo's study ready to receive guests. Her son Andrea is seated, putting celestial charts away.
? MRS. SARTI Ever since we arrived in this marvelous Florence I've seen nothing but bowing and scraping. The whole town files past this tube and I can scrub the floor afterwards. But it won't do us a bit of good. If these discoveries amounted to anything, the reverend fathers would know it, wouldn't they? For four years I was in service with Monsignor Filippo, I never managed to dust the whole of his library. Leather- bound volumes up to the ceiling and no love poems either. And the good monsignor had two pounds of
boils on his behind from poring over all that learning. Wouldn't a man like that know what's what? The big demonstration today will be another flop and tomorrow I won't be able to look the milkman in the face. I knew what I was saying when I told him to give the gentlemen a good dinner first, a nice piece of lamb, before they start in on his tube. Oh no! (She imitates
Galileo) "I've got something better for them. "
(Knocking downstairs)
MRS. SARTI (looks in the window-mirror) Goodness, there's the grand duke already.
And Galileo still at the university! (She runs downstairs and admits Cosmo de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, accompanied by the lord chamberlain and two ladies- in-waiting).
COSMO I want to see the tube.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Perhaps Your Highness would prefer to wait until Mr.
Galilei and the other gentlemen have returned from the university.
(To Mrs. Sarti) Mr. Galilei wanted the professors of astronomy to examine the newly discovered stars which he calls the Medicean stars.
COSMO They don't believe in the tube, far from it. Where is it? MRS. SARTI Upstairs, in his workroom.
(The boy nods, points to the staircase, and upon a nod from Mrs. Sarti dashes up the
stairs)
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Your Highness! (To Mrs. Sarti) Must we go up there? I
only came because the tutor is ill.
MRS. SARTI Nothing can happen to the young gentleman. My
boy's upstairs. COSMO (entering above) Good evening.
(The two boys ceremoniously bow to each other. Pause, Then Andrea goes back to his work)
ANDREA (much like his teacher) This place is as busy as a pigeon house.
COSMO Lots of visitors?
ANDREA Stumble about and gape and don't know beans. COSMO I see. Is that . . . ?
20
? (Points at the tube)
ANDREA Yes, that's it. But don't touch it. It's not allowed.
And what's that? (He indicates the wooden model of the Ptolemaic system)
COSMO
ANDREA
COSMO
ANDREA
COSMO (sitting down in a chair, he takes the model on his knees) My tutor has a cold. So I
was able to get away early. It's nice here.
ANDREA (is restless, ambles about irresolutely, throwing suspicious glances at the strange
boy, and at last, unable to resist the temptation any longer, takes from behind the star charts another wooden model representing the Copernican system)
But of course it's really like this.
COSMO What's like this?
ANDREA (pointing at the model on Cosmo's knees) That's the way people think it is
and that's (Pointing at his model) the way it really is.