by Dava Sobel
COPERNICUS. No, there’s no wind.
RHETICUS. That’s what I’m saying.
COPERNICUS. There’s no wind because the air turns along with the Earth.
RHETICUS. The air? Turns?
COPERNICUS. It’s all of a piece, yes. They turn together, as one. The Earth and the air. And the water, of course.
RHETICUS. We could not be moving that fast and not feel anything. It’s impossible.
COPERNICUS. (grabbing RHETICUS by the shoulders to shake him) It’s turning!
All the time, it’s turning. And that turning is what makes the Sun appear to rise …
COPERNICUS turns RHETICUS by the shoulders, roughly, so he faces away (his back to COPERNICUS ).
COPERNICUS. And set …
COPERNICUS turns RHETICUS the rest of the way around, so they face each other again.
COPERNICUS. And rise again on the following day.
COPERNICUS holds RHETICUS there for a moment, their faces close, then pushes him away, drops his hands, steps back.
RHETICUS. What about the other motion?
COPERNICUS. You think I don’t know it sounds crazy? Do you have any idea how long it took me to accept it myself? To go against the judgments of centuries, to claim something so … so totally at odds with common experience?
RHETICUS. Tell me about the other motion, around the Sun.
COPERNICUS. It’s the same thing. You don’t feel it. It’s part of you, like breathing.
RHETICUS. No, I mean, is it … just as fast?
COPERNICUS. Oh.
RHETICUS. Is it?
COPERNICUS. No.
RHETICUS. Good.
COPERNICUS. It’s faster.
RHETICUS. Damn!
They turn away from each other.
RHETICUS. (turning back to COPERNICUS) How fast does it go?
COPERNICUS. Around the Sun?
RHETICUS. Around the Sun, yes.
COPERNICUS. I don’t know.
RHETICUS. Oh, come on. Tell me.
COPERNICUS. (turning to RHETICUS) I really don’t know. No one knows the actual distance that the Earth would have to go to get all the way around, but it must be in the millions … It must be many millions of miles. Which means we go around the Sun at least … at least ten times faster than we spin.
RHETICUS. So, ten thousand miles per …
COPERNICUS. Maybe a hundred times faster.
RHETICUS. A hundred times a thousand miles?
COPERNICUS. Maybe.
RHETICUS. That’s where it all falls apart.
COPERNICUS. Why?
RHETICUS. Why?
COPERNICUS. Why does it make more sense for the Sun to go around the Earth? The Sun should stand as a light for all creation, unmoved, at the center of the universe. The way a king or an emperor rules from his throne. He doesn’t hurry himself about, from city to city. Once you let the Sun take his rightful place at the hearth, the Earth and the other planets arrange themselves in perfect order around it. And they take their speed from his command. That is why Mercury, the nearest to him, travels around him the fastest. And after Mercury, each successive planet takes a slower course, all the way out to Saturn, the slowest of them all.
RHETICUS. Really? They line up like that? In order of their speed?
COPERNICUS. It’s as though they draw some kind of motive force from the Sun’s light.
RHETICUS. What could it be? What kind of force?
COPERNICUS. I don’t know. I am still in the dark on that matter. But it’s there. And that’s why all their motions are interrelated, as though linked together by a golden chain. You could not alter a single one, even so much as a fraction of an inch, without upsetting all the rest.
RHETICUS. The way you talk. It’s as though you know God’s plan.
COPERNICUS. Why else would you study mathematics? If not to discover that?
Beat.
RHETICUS. And the stars?
COPERNICUS. The sphere of the stars, like the Sun, also holds still. It cannot spin around the Earth every day. It’s too big.
RHETICUS. I’m trying to see it your way. Really, I am. But if the Earth moves around the Sun … Shouldn’t we see some change in the stars?
Wouldn’t some of them look … I don’t know … closer together sometimes, or farther apart? There should be a change, from spring to fall, that people who paid attention would notice.
COPERNICUS. You would think that would happen.
RHETICUS. I don’t know what to think.
COPERNICUS. But no. You don’t see any seasonal difference. Because the stars are so much farther away than anyone has imagined. The scale of the universe is all but inconceivable. The distance to the stars is so tremendous that it dwarfs the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Compared to the distance from Saturn to the stars? The distance from the Earth to the Sun is … negligible.
RHETICUS. Negligible?
COPERNICUS. It shrinks to just a point, really.
RHETICUS. You’re making this up. It’s your own fantasy. The stars get in your way? You just wave them off to some other place.
COPERNICUS. Don’t impose any puny, human limits on Creation. As though the whole cosmos were just a crystal ball for your own little personal affairs.
RHETICUS. In the name of the Creator, then: What is the use of all that empty space between Saturn and the stars?
COPERNICUS. The use ?
RHETICUS. Yes.
COPERNICUS. What is the use of grandeur? Of splendor? Of glory? Thus vast, I tell you, is the divine handiwork of the one Almighty God!
Brief blackout in which the planetarium effect returns, spins, then disappears. End of Act I.
Word of Copernicus’s astonishing theory, first released around 1510, challenged scholars to consider a world in motion. Almost a decade before Rheticus arrived in Frauenburg, this map became the first to suggest the Earth’s rotation around a central axis, powered by cherubs turning crank handles at the poles. Published in Basel in 1532, the map has been variously attributed to Sebastian Münster and Hans Holbein.
Act II
Scene ix. Tower room
Collaborators
Very little time has passed since the preceding scene. COPERNICUS
riffles through a tall stack of pages, looking for a certain section.
RHETICUS still wears COPERNICUS’s cassock, which is too big for him.
RHETICUS grabs at random pages and reads them with growing excitement.
RHETICUS. I can’t believe you did all this work yourself.
COPERNICUS. I want you to see the section on Mercury. I’ve always known there was something wrong with my value for the anomaly. Maybe now, with Schöner’s observations to add to …
RHETICUS. How long did it take you to make this many observations?
COPERNICUS. Here it is.
RHETICUS. There’s enough work here to fill a lifetime. Have you really had no help at all?
COPERNICUS. Look at the size of the second epicyclet. The first one is on the deferent.
RHETICUS. You used two?!
COPERNICUS. I had to introduce the second one. Without it, the diameter of the deferent …
RHETICUS. Oh, now I see what you … Oh, yes.
COPERNICUS. The other way, with just a single … Here. I assembled all the correction factors in these tables. It’s fairly obvious how to use them … But in the case of Mercury …
RHETICUS. I want a copy of these tables. I must have them.
COPERNICUS. Even with the tables, you still need to add in the …
RHETICUS. No one has a resource like this. What you’ve done here is … It’s nothing short of extraordinary. It’s more than the intellect or the labors of a single individual could accomplish. And yet you have accomplished it.
RHETICUS keeps examining the manuscript, exclaiming.
COPERNICUS stands back, watching him.
RHETICUS. Why haven’t you published this?
COPERNICUS. You know why.
RHETICUS. Not the theory. But just these sections. Mathematicians would give anything for …
COPERNICUS. I don’t want to divide the work that way. And pretend I don’t know what I know.
RHETICUS. All right, then. The whole thing. Publish it all. Why not?
COPERNICUS. Now you sound like the crazy one.
RHETICUS. No, this is … This should be published. It will cause a sensation.
COPERNICUS. I will be laughed off the stage.
RHETICUS. It’s all in the way you present it. Certainly you could not start off by insisting that the Earth moves.
COPERNICUS. But I would. I would have to say that.
RHETICUS. No, that will just raise everyone’s hackles. You can say it later. First you show them all these other … Where is that … ? The first thing you showed me. Here! Here’s a perfect example. This part, where you explain how you approached the equant problem. My God! People have been trying to solve that for …
COPERNICUS. No, really. It’s not for publication.
RHETICUS. You must publish it.
COPERNICUS. I think Pythagoras had the right idea, when he kept his secret numbers a secret. He never divulged them to anyone, except his kinsmen and friends. And even then, only by word of mouth. Never in writing.
RHETICUS. He was afraid somebody would steal his idea.
COPERNICUS. No.
RHETICUS. You will have your name on the title page of your book.
COPERNICUS. That’s not what he was afraid of. Believe me, I know how he felt. He wanted to protect his most beautiful ideas from ridicule.
Beat.
RHETICUS. You know those books I brought you?
COPERNICUS. You want them back?
RHETICUS. I met that printer, in Nuremberg.
COPERNICUS. I said you could have them.
RHETICUS. No, listen, please. He’s a friend of Schöner’s. He’s very good. The best printer of scientific works anywhere in Germany. In all of Europe, probably. If I showed him this manuscript …
COPERNICUS. I told you, I’ve decided not to publish.
RHETICUS. You can’t keep this to yourself. It isn’t right. Secrecy has no place in science anymore.
COPERNICUS. Easy for you to say. You would not face the scorn that I have to fear.
RHETICUS. The mathematicians will …
COPERNICUS. Not just mathematicians but Church men will oppose me.
RHETICUS. After you publish it, if someone disagrees with you …
COPERNICUS. If someone disagrees? If?!
RHETICUS. If someone disagrees with you, let him publish a counterargument. Then you come back to refute his counterargument. And you go on like that. Back and forth. That’s how learned men make good use of the God-given printing press.
COPERNICUS. It … it isn’t even finished.
RHETICUS. There’s enough material here to …
COPERNICUS. No. Several sections still need work.
RHETICUS. Show me.
ANNA enters.
ANNA. His clothes are dry.
RHETICUS. (to COPERNICUS) Let me help you.
ANNA. Everything’s ready. It’s time now.
COPERNICUS. Thank you, Anna. You can just leave those here.
ANNA. He should be going soon.
COPERNICUS. Leave the things, Anna. I’ll be down shortly.
ANNA. You know he doesn’t belong here.
COPERNICUS. I said …
ANNA. He could ruin everything!
COPERNICUS. Anna, don’t …
ANNA. Why are you doing this?! What is the matter with you?!
ANNA, crying, runs out of the room.
COPERNICUS. (following her out) Anna, wait!
RHETICUS picks up his clothes, dresses, though still unable to tear himself away from the manuscript. He continues to devour it, turning toward the door a couple of times with an uneasy sense of being watched.
After another few moments, he sidles to the door, opens it.
FRANZ, who had been kneeling at the keyhole, falls into the room.
RHETICUS. Hello.
FRANZ. (getting up) The bishop was concerned …
RHETICUS. The bishop?
FRANZ. About … your health.
RHETICUS. Am I under arrest?
FRANZ. Oh, no. Not yet. I mean … I don’t think so, no. But I’m supposed to watch you.
RHETICUS. Were you watching me just now?
FRANZ. No.
RHETICUS. You must have seen me …
FRANZ. No, I didn’t see anything …
RHETICUS. You must not have been looking very carefully.
FRANZ. Are you … feeling better?
RHETICUS. That depends. Who wants to know?
FRANZ. I do.
RHETICUS. Fine, thank you. Very much improved. You may call me Joachim.
FRANZ stares at him, too flustered to speak.
RHETICUS. And you are?
FRANZ. What are all these things? What does he do up here?
RHETICUS. He makes the Earth move.
Beat.
RHETICUS. Come here. I’ll show you. Don’t be afraid.
RHETICUS takes FRANZ by the shoulders, repeating the earlier action of
COPERNICUS, but gently.
RHETICUS. He says the Earth turns, you see. It sounds silly, the first time you hear it, I know, but it gives you a way to explain why you see the Sun come up every day, then slowly move …
RHETICUS turns FRANZ, step by step.
RHETICUS. Across the sky, until it sets in the west.
RHETICUS stops Franz with his back to him, moves closer to him.
RHETICUS. Then it’s nighttime. But the Earth doesn’t stop there. It keeps on turning, through the night.
RHETICUS continues turning FRANZ slowly, to face him.
RHETICUS. Until dawn ends the darkness, and it’s day again.
RHETICUS leans closer, takes FRANZ’s face in his hands.
Lights fade to black.
SCENE x. BISHOP’S BEDROOM
SCRIPTURE
COPERNICUS conducts a routine, hands-on medical exam of the BISHOP as they speak.
BISHOP. Has he come round, then?
COPERNICUS. He has, yes.
BISHOP. What have you learned about him?
COPERNICUS. It’s rather something he taught me, about myself, Your Reverence.
BISHOP. Oh, yes? But who is he?
COPERNICUS. He has awakened in me a wish to resume my own work in mathematics.
BISHOP. Is that so?
COPERNICUS. The explication of my theory.
BISHOP. I don’t know, Nicholas. Do you really have time for that? With all your other duties?
COPERNICUS. I feel I must make time for it, now.
BISHOP. But how? When? You’re not a young man, you know.
COPERNICUS. Precisely.
Beat.
BISHOP. You still haven’t told me anything about him.
COPERNICUS. I’m thinking I should publish it.
BISHOP. Publish? Your theory?
COPERNICUS. He has convinced me that other mathematicians will welcome the idea.
BISHOP. Your idea, Nicholas … Well. I’m sure it’s very mathematical. Indeed. But, at the same time, it oversteps the bounds of mathematics. As I see it. I will go so far as to say it shakes the very foundation of Church doctrine.
COPERNICUS. Oh, no, Your Reverence.
BISHOP. What about Joshua?
COPERNICUS sighs.
BISHOP. Answer me.
COPERNICUS. Begging Your Reverence’s pardon. It’s just that I … I have had Joshua raised against me so many times that I begin to feel myself like one of his enemies among the Amorites.
BISHOP. Well, what about him?
COPERNICUS. Nothing.
BISHOP. How do you respond, Nicholas? How do you defend yourself against the charge that your ideas conflict with what the Bible says of Joshua?
COPERNICUS. I don’t answer. I think it’s better to say n
othing.
BISHOP. You refuse to answer me?
COPERNICUS. Oh, not you, Your Reverence. I don’t want to answer the charge. I would rather avoid any mention of Joshua, and limit my comments to mathematics alone.
BISHOP. That’s no answer.
COPERNICUS. I’m afraid, Your Reverence. Afraid there may be … babblers, who claim to be judges of astronomy, although completely ignorant of the subject. And such men are not above twisting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, to censure me.
BISHOP. I am not trying to censure …
COPERNICUS. Oh, I know Your Reverence is not one of those.
BISHOP. I have overlooked all sorts of infractions lately, as I need not remind you!
COPERNICUS. Thank you, Your Reverence.
BISHOP. But you will most certainly have to deal with Joshua. And countless other passages of Holy Writ. The Psalms also teach us that the Earth does not move.
COPERNICUS. As I read those passages, I hear the godly Psalmist declare that he is made glad through the work of the Lord. That he rejoices in the works of His hands. Only that.
BISHOP. Are we reading the same Bible, Nicholas? Psalm 104 says the Lord God laid the foundation of the Earth, that it not be moved forever. Not be moved. Forever.
COPERNICUS. It’s a matter of interpretation.
BISHOP. What’s to interpret? It’s stated there in plain language. It couldn’t be more clear. Not to be moved forever. It doesn’t say it should spin like a top.
COPERNICUS. To me, it says that God, the source of all goodness, created an abiding home for mankind on this Earth. And that foundation will hold firm forever.
BISHOP. That still doesn’t answer Joshua.
COPERNICUS. As strange as it may sound, Your Reverence, to someone who is not a mathematician, my theory offers certain advantages for the improvement of the calendar.
BISHOP. The ecclesiastical calendar?
COPERNICUS. Easter, for example. To calculate the correct date of Easter each year.
BISHOP. You could make a contribution of that significance?
COPERNICUS. I don’t mean to boast.
BISHOP. Why didn’t you say so before? Why have you never even mentioned the calendar until now?
COPERNICUS. I lacked the confidence to expose my theory … to the scrutiny of others.
