GALILEO (laughs) Because we are like the worms who are little and have dim eyes and can hardly see the stars at all, and the new astronomy is a framework of guesses or very little more – yet. (Mrs. Sarti shows in Ludovico Marsili, a presentable young man)
GALILEO This house is like a marketplace (Pointing to the model) Move that out of the way! Put it down there! (Ludovico does)
LUDOVICO Good morning, sir. My name is Ludovico Marsili.
GALILEO (reading a letter of recommendation he has brought) You came by way of Holland and your family lives in the Campagna? Private lessons, thirty scudi a month.
LUDOVICO That’s all right, of course, sir.
GALILEO What is your subject?
LUDOVICO Horses.
GALILEO Aha.
LUDOVICO I don’t understand science, sir.
GALILEO Aha.
LUDOVICO They showed me an instrument like that in Amsterdam. You’ll pardon me, sir, but it didn’t make sense to me at all.
GALILEO It’s out of date now. (Andrea goes)
LUDOVICO You’ll have to be patient with me, sir. Nothing in science makes sense to me.
GALILEO Aha.
LUDOVICO I saw a brand new instrument in Amsterdam. A tube affair. “See things five times as large as life!” It had two lenses, one at each end, one lens bulged and the other was like that. (Gesture) Any normal person would think that different lenses cancel each other out. They didn’t! I just stood and looked a fool.
GALILEO I don’t quite follow you. What does one see enlarged?
LUDOVICO Church steeples, pigeons, boats. Anything at a distance.
GALILEO Did you yourself – see things enlarged?
LUDOVICO Yes, sir.
GALILEO And the tube had two lenses? Was it like this? (He has been making a sketch) (Ludovico nods)
GALILEO A recent invention?
LUDOVICO It must be. They only started peddling it on the streets a few days before I left Holland.
GALILEO (starts to scribble calculations on the sketch; almost friendly) Why do you bother your head with science? Why don’t you just breed horses?
(Enter Mrs. Sarti. Galileo doesn’t see her. She listens to the following)
LUDOVICO My mother is set on the idea that science is necessary nowadays for conversation.
GALILEO Aha. You’ll find Latin or philosophy easier. (Mrs. Sarti catches his eye) I’ll see you on Tuesday afternoon.
LUDOVICO I shall look forward to it, sir.
GALILEO Good morning. (He goes to the window and shouts into the street) Andrea! Hey, Redhead, Redhead!
MRS. SARTI The curator of the museum is here to see you.
GALILEO Don’t look at me like that. I took him, didn’t I?
MRS. SARTI I caught your eye in time.
GALILEO Show the curator in.
(She goes. He scribbles something on a new sheet of paper. The Curator comes in)
CURATOR Good morning, Mr. Galilei.
GALILEO Lend me a scudo. (He takes it and goes to the window, wrapping the coin in the paper on which he has been scribbling) Redhead, run to the spectacle-maker and bring me two lenses; here are the measurements. (He throws the paper out of the window. During the following scene Galileo studies his sketch of the lenses)
CURATOR Mr. Galilei, I have come to return your petition for an honorarium. Unfortunately I am unable to recommend your request.
GALILEO My good sir, how can I make ends meet on five hundred scudi?
CURATOR What about your private students?
GALILEO If I spend all my time with students, when am I to study? My particular science is on the threshold of important discoveries. (He throws a manuscript on the table) Here are my findings on the laws of falling bodies. That should be worth 200 scudi.
CURATOR I am sure that any paper of yours is of infinite worth, Mr. Galilei….
GALILEO I was limiting it to 200 scudi.
CURATOR (cool) Mr. Galilei, if you want money and leisure, go to Florence. I have no doubt Prince Cosmo de Medici will be glad to subsidize you, but eventually you will be forbidden to think – in the name of the Inquisition. (Galileo says nothing) Now let us not make a mountain out of a molehill. You are happy here in the Republic of Venice but you need money. Well, that’s human, Mr. Galilei, may I suggest a simple solution? You remember that chart you made for the army to extract cube roots without any knowledge of mathematics? Now that was practical!
GALILEO Bosh!
CURATOR Don’t say bosh about something that astounded the Chamber of Commerce. Our city elders are businessmen. Why don’t you invent something useful that will bring them a little profit?
GALILEO (playing with the sketch of the lenses; suddenly) I see. Mr. Priuli, I may have something for you.
CURATOR You don’t say so.
GALILEO It’s not quite there yet, but …
CURATOR You’ve never let me down yet, Galilei.
GALILEO You are always an inspiration to me, Priuli.
CURATOR You are a great man: a discontented man, but I’ve always said you are a great man.
GALILEO (tartly) My discontent, Priuli, is for the most part with myself. I am forty-six years of age and have achieved nothing which satisfies me.
CURATOR I won’t disturb you any further.
GALILEO Thank you. Good morning.
CURATOR Good morning. And thank you.
(He goes. Galileo sighs. Andrea returns, bringing lenses)
ANDREA One scudo was not enough. I had to leave my cap with him before he’d let me take them away.
GALILEO We’ll get it back some day. Give them to me. (He takes the lenses over to the window, holding them in the relation they would have in a telescope)
ANDREA What are those for?
GALILEO Something for the senate. With any luck, they will rake in 200 scudi. Take a look!
ANDREA My, things look close! I can read the copper letters on the bell in the Campanile. And the washerwomen by the river, I can see their washboards!
GALILEO Get out of the way. (Looking through the lenses himself) Aha!
Scene Two
No one’s virtue is complete:
Great Galileo liked to eat.
You will not resent, we hope,
The truth about his telescope.
The great arsenal of Venice, overlooking the harbor full of ships. Senators and Officials on one side, Galileo, his daughter Virginia and his friend Sagredo, on the other side. They are dressed in formal, festive clothes. Virginia is fourteen and charming. She carries a velvet cushion on which lies a brand new telescope. Behind Galileo are some Artisans from the arsenal. There are onlookers, Ludovico amongst them.
CURATOR (announcing) Senators, Artisans of the Great Arsenal of Venice; Mr. Galileo Galilei, professor of mathematics at your University of Padua.
(Galileo steps forward and starts to speak)
GALILEO Members of the High Senate! Gentlemen: I have great pleasure, as director of this institute, in presenting for your approval and acceptance an entirely new instrument originating from this our great arsenal of the Republic of Venice. As professor of mathematics at your University of Padua, your obedient servant has always counted it his privilege to offer you such discoveries and inventions as might prove lucrative to the manufacturers and merchants of our Venetian Republic. Thus, in all humility, I tender you this, my optical tube, or telescope, constructed, I assure you, on the most scientific and Christian principles, the product of seventeen years patient research at your University of Padua. (Galileo steps back. The senators applaud)
SAGREDO (aside to Galileo) Now you will be able to pay your bills.
GALILEO Yes. It will make money for them. But you realize that it is more than a money-making gadget? – I turned it on the moon last night …
CURATOR (in his best chamber-of-commerce manner) Gentlemen: Our Republic is to be congratulated not only because this new acquisition will be one more feather in the cap of Venetian culture … (Polite applause) … not o
nly because our own Mr. Galilei has generously handed this fresh product of his teeming brain entirely over to you, allowing you to manufacture as many of these highly saleable articles as you please…. (Considerable applause) But Gentlemen of the Senate, has it occurred to you that – with the help of this remarkable new instrument – the battlefleet of the enemy will be visible to us a full two hours before we are visible to him? (Tremendous applause)
GALILEO (aside to Sagredo) We have been held up three generations for lack of a thing like this. I want to go home.
SAGREDO What about the moon?
GALILEO Well, for one thing, it doesn’t give off its own light.
CURATOR (continuing his oration) And now, Your Excellency, and Members of the Senate, Mr. Galilei entreats you to accept the instrument from the hands of his charming daughter Virginia. (Polite applause. He beckons to Virginia who steps forward and presents the telescope to the Doge)
CURATOR (during this) Mr. Galilei gives his invention entirely into your hands, Gentlemen, enjoining you to construct as many of these instruments as you may please.
(More applause. The Senators gather round the telescope, examining it, and looking through it)
GALILEO (aside to Sagredo) Do you know what the Milky Way is made of?
SAGREDO No.
GALILEO I do.
CURATOR (interrupting) Congratulations, Mr. Galilei. Your extra five hundred scudi a year are safe.
GALILEO Pardon? What? Of course, the five hundred scudi! Yes! (A prosperous man is standing beside the Curator)
CURATOR Mr. Galilei, Mr. Matti of Florence.
MATTI You’re opening new fields, Mr. Galilei. We could do with you at Florence.
CURATOR Now, Mr. Matti, leave something to us poor Venetians.
MATTI It is a pity that a great republic has to seek an excuse to pay its great men their right and proper dues.
CURATOR Even a great man has to have an incentive. (He joins the Senators at the telescope)
MATTI I am an iron founder.
GALILEO Iron founder!
MATTI With factories at Pisa and Florence. I wanted to talk to you about a machine you designed for a friend of mine in Padua.
GALILEO I’ll put you on to someone to copy it for you, I am not going to have the time. – How are things in Florence? (They wander away)
FIRST SENATOR (peering) Extraordinary! They’re having their lunch on that frigate. Lobsters! I’m hungry! (Laughter)
SECOND SENATOR Oh, good heavens, look at her! I must tell my wife to stop bathing on the roof. When can I buy one of these things?
(Laughter. Virginia has spotted Ludovico among the onlookers and drags him to Galileo)
VIRGINIA (to Ludovico) Did I do it nicely?
LUDOVICO I thought so.
VIRGINIA Here’s Ludovico to congratulate you, father.
LUDOVICO (embarrassed) Congratulations, sir.
GALILEO I improved it.
LUDOVICO Yes, sir. I am beginning to understand science.
(Galileo is surrounded)
VIRGINIA Isn’t father a great man?
LUDOVICO Yes.
VIRGINIA Isn’t the new thing father made pretty?
LUDOVICO Yes, a pretty red. Where I saw it first it was covered in green.
VIRGINIA What was?
LUDOVICO Never mind. (A short pause) Have you ever been to Holland?
(They go. All Venice is congratulating Galileo, who wants to go home)
Scene Three
January ten, sixteen ten:
Galileo Galilei abolishes heaven.
Galileo’s study at Padua. It is night. Galileo and Sagredo at a telescope.
SAGREDO (softly) The edge of the crescent is jagged. All along the dark part, near the shiny crescent, bright particles of light keep coming up, one after the other and growing larger and merging with the bright crescent.
GALILEO How do you explain those spots of light?
SAGREDO It can’t be true …
GALILEO It is true: they are high mountains.
SAGREDO On a star?
GALILEO Yes. The shining particles are mountain peaks catching the first rays of the rising sun while the slopes of the mountains are still dark, and what you see is the sunlight moving down the peaks into the valleys.
SAGREDO But this gives the lie to all the astronomy that’s been taught for the last two thousand years.
GALILEO Yes. What you are seeing now has been seen by no other man beside myself.
SAGREDO But the moon can’t be an earth with mountains and valleys like our own any more than the earth can be a star.
GALILEO The moon is an earth with mountains and valleys, – and the earth is a star. As the moon appears to us, so we appear to the moon. From the moon, the earth looks something like a crescent, sometimes like a half-globe, sometimes a full-globe, and sometimes it is not visible at all.
SAGREDO Galileo, this is frightening.
(An urgent knocking on the door)
GALILEO I’ve discovered something else, something even more astonishing.
(More knocking. Galileo opens the door and the Curator comes in)
CURATOR There it is – your “miraculous optical tube.” Do you know that this invention he so picturesquely termed “the fruit of seventeen years research” will be on sale tomorrow for two scudi apiece at every street corner in Venice? A shipload of them has just arrived from Holland.
SAGREDO Oh, dear!
(Galileo turns his back and adjusts the telescope)
CURATOR When I think of the poor gentlemen of the senate who believed they were getting an invention they could monopolize for their own profit…. Why, when they took their first look through the glass, it was only by the merest chance that they didn’t see a peddler, seven times enlarged, selling tubes exactly like it at the corner of the street.
SAGREDO Mr. Priuli, with the help of this instrument, Mr. Galileo has made discoveries that will revolutionize our concept of the universe.
CURATOR Mr. Galileo provided the city with a first rate water pump and the irrigation works he designed function splendidly. How was I to expect this?
GALILEO (still at the telescope) Not so fast, Priuli. I may be on the track of a very large gadget. Certain of the stars appear to have regular movements. If there were a clock in the sky, it could be seen from anywhere. That might be useful for your shipowners.
CURATOR I won’t listen to you. I listened to you before, and as a reward for my friendship you have made me the laughing-stock of the town. You can laugh – you got your money. But let me tell you this: you’ve destroyed my faith in a lot of things, Mr. Galilei. I’m disgusted with the world. That’s all I have to say. (He storms out)
GALILEO (embarrassed) Businessmen bore me, they suffer so. Did you see the frightened look in his eyes when he caught sight of a world not created solely for the purpose of doing business?
SAGREDO Did you know that telescopes had been made in Holland?
GALILEO I’d heard about it. But the one I made for the Senators was twice as good as any Dutchman’s. Besides, I needed the money. How can I work, with the tax collector on the doorstep? And my poor daughter will never acquire a husband unless she has a dowry, she’s not too bright. And I like to buy books – all kinds of books. Why not? And what about my appetite? I don’t think well unless I eat well. Can I help it if I get my best ideas over a good meal and a bottle of wine? They don’t pay me as much as they pay the butcher’s boy. If only I could have five years to do nothing but research! Come on. I am going to show you something else.
SAGREDO I don’t know that I want to look again.
GALILEO This is one of the brighter nebulae of the Milky Way. What do you see?
SAGREDO But it’s made up of stars – countless stars.
GALILEO Countless worlds.
SAGREDO (hesitating) What about the theory that the earth revolves round the sun? Have you run across anything about that?
GALILEO No. But I noticed something on Tuesday that mi
ght prove a step towards even that. Where’s Jupiter? There are four lesser stars near Jupiter. I happened on them on Monday but didn’t take any particular note of their position. On Tuesday I looked again. I could have sworn they had moved. They have changed again. Tell me what you see.
SAGREDO I only see three.
GALILEO Where’s the fourth? Let’s get the charts and settle down to work.
(They work and the lights dim. The lights go up again. It is near dawn)
GALILEO The only place the fourth can be is round at the back of the larger star where we cannot see it. This means there are small stars revolving around a big star. Where are the crystal shells now that the stars are supposed to be fixed to?
SAGREDO Jupiter can’t be attached to anything: there are other stars revolving round it.
GALILEO There is no support in the heavens. (Sagredo laughs awkwardly) Don’t stand there looking at me as if it weren’t true.
SAGREDO I suppose it is true. I’m afraid.
GALILEO Why?
SAGREDO What do you think is going to happen to you for saying that there is another sun around which other earths revolve? And that there are only stars and no difference between earth and heaven? Where is God then?
GALILEO What do you mean?
SAGREDO God? Where is God?
GALILEO (angrily) Not there! Any more than he’d be here – if creatures from the moon came down to look for him!
SAGREDO Then where is He?
GALILEO I’m not a theologian: I’m a mathematician.
SAGREDO You are a human being! (Almost shouting) Where is God in your system of the universe?
GALILEO Within ourselves. Or – nowhere.
SAGREDO Ten years ago a man was burned at the stake for saying that.
GALILEO Giordano Bruno was an idiot: he spoke too soon. He would never have been condemned if he could have backed up what he said with proof.
SAGREDO (incredulously) Do you really believe proof will make any difference?
GALILEO I believe in the human race. The only people that can’t be reasoned with are the dead. Human beings are intelligent.
SAGREDO Intelligent – or merely shrewd?
GALILEO I know they call a donkey a horse when they want to sell it, and a horse a donkey when they want to buy it. But is that the whole story? Aren’t they susceptible to truth as well? (He fishes a small pebble out of his pocket) If anybody were to drop a stone … (Drops the pebble)… and tell them that it didn’t fall, do you think they would keep quiet? The evidence of your own eyes is a very seductive thing. Sooner or later everybody must succumb to it.
Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) Page 41
