August 21, 1601- Non videri sed esse

My Dearest Jepp: Watch Johannes closely-

That overweening upstart keeps looking

for my maps to confirm his heresy.

After your nightly toast, he passed my drink–

I swear I caught a glint of mercury

around my beer stein’s rim. Nothing escapes

my sight! Not even Cassiopiea

concealing her crown in that vaulted space–

like my hand cupped about this candle flame–

could go unnoticed by my naked eye.

Therefore, when my fingers fall away

and the corners of our hall fill with light,

pray, help me plot the motions of this boor

who hopes to make his name upon my corpse.

September 15, 1601- Despiciendo suspicio

Dear Jepp, my helpmeet: Again, I am sick…

perhaps our guest is brighter than we thought,

all eyes within my keep have tracked

his every move, yet have availed me naught

but the mundane orbits of a fawner

hovering closer to his master’s side,

like Jupiter’s errant brush with Saturn.

If ever I needed your second sight,

my diminutive friend, it would be now,

before my metal nose is on a plate

and I have joined old Rix above the clouds

with Urinaborg’s drunken apostates.

(and while my health still hovers at the brink,

please continue to serve my food and drink).

 October 13, 1601- Ne frustra vixisse videar

Farewell, Jepp: to you I bequeath my charts,

the cross-staff I hid from my master’s sight,

quadrants and clepsydras from my chambers

and any other heavenly device

worthy of your size and humility.

Now the sun is in Libra, I must sleep.

Please guard my secrets for posterity

and tell the Baron Rosenberg to keep

my sextant as a gift. Kepler never

showed his hand, after all my doubts; should he

or any other young astronomer

impugn the corpus of Tycho Brahe,

give them these words to remember me by

“Oh thick-wits, Oh blind watchers of the sky!”