Georg Joachim de
Porris, also known as Rheticus narrates
the third part of John
Banville's 1975 novel Doctor
Copernicus, relating how he convinced Copernicus to publish his book, De
revolutionibus. The novel itself is less about Copernicus's work than about
his life and the 16th century world in which he lived. In May 1539, Rheticus
arrived in Frombork (Frauenburg), where he spent two years
with Copernicus.
The author, Banville, in the following excerpt from the novel, presents a picture of Copernicus as a man
conflicted in what his life and studies have accomplished. He is a scientist
working to find the truths of the physical world in conflict with the Canon
whose duty it is to promulgate the Catholic faith. His theory of heliocentric
planetary motion will disrupt the prevailing geocentric theory set out by
Ptolemy which was the basis of thinking at the time.
Banville’s portrayal of
Copernicus presents a man deeply concerned about the effect his radical
research will have on the Church and people’s view of the cosmos.
Rheticus here is the narrator:
"Well then, you say, if it
was so terrible, why did remain there, why
did I not flee, and leave
Copernicus, wrapped in his caution and his bit-
terness, to sink into
oblivion? Listen: have said that I was a greater
astronomer than he, and I
am, but he possessed one precious thing that
I lacked—I mean a
reputation. O, he was cautious, yes, and he genu-
inely feared and loathed
the world, but he was cunning also, and knew
that curiosity is a rash
which men will scratch and scratch until it
drives them frantic for the
cure. For years now he had eked out, at
carefully chosen intervals,
small portions of his theory, each one of
which—the Commentariolus,
the Letter contra Werner, my Narra-
tzb—was a grain of salt
rubbed into the rash with which he had
inflicted his fellow
astronomers. And they had scratched, and the rash
had developed into a sore
that spread, until all Europe was infected,
and screaming for the one
thing alone that would end the plague,
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which was De revolutionibus
orbium mundi, by Doctor Nicolas
Copernicus, of Torun on the
Vistula. And he would give them their
physic; he had decided, he
had decided to publish, I knew it, and he
knew I knew it, but what he
did not know was that, by doing so, by
publishing, he would not be
crowning his own reputation, but making
mine. You do not understand?
Only wait, and I shall explain.
But first I must recount
some few other small matters, such as, to
begin with, how in the end
he came to give me his consent to publish.
However, in order to
illuminate that scene, as it were, I wish to record
a conversation I had with
him which, later, I came to realise was a
summation of his attitude
to science and the world, the aridity, the
barrenness of that
attitude. He had been speaking, I remember, of the
seven spheres of Hermes
Trismegistus through which the soul ascends
toward redemption in the
eighth sphere of the fixed stars. I grew im-
patient listening to this
rigmarole, and said something like:
"But your work,
Meister, is of this world, of the here and now; it
speaks to men of what they
may know, and not of mysteries that they
can only believe in blindly
or not at all. "
He shook his head
impatiently.
"No no no no. You
imagine that my book is a kind of mirror in
which the real world is
reflected; but you are mistaken, you must rea-
lise that. In order to
build such a mirror, I should need to be able to per-
ceive the world whole, in
its entirety and in its essence. But our lives
are lived in such a tiny,
confined space, and in such disorder, that this
perception is not possible,
There is no contact, none worth mentioning,
between the universe and
the place in which we live."
I was puzzled and upset;
this nihilism was inimical to all held to be
true and useful. I said:
"But if what you say
is so, then how is it that we are aware of the
existence of the universe,
the real world? How, without perception, do
"Ach, Rheticus!"
It was the first time he had called me by that
name. "You do not
understand me! You do not understand yourself.
You think that to see is to
perceive, but listen, listen: seeing is not per-
ception! Why will no one
realise that? I lift my head and look at the
stars, as did the ancients,
and I say: what are those lights? Some call
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them torches borne by
angels, others, pinpricks in the shroud of
Heaven; others still,
scientists such as ourselves, call them stars and
planets that make a manner
of machine whose workings we strive to
comprehend. But do you not
understand that, without perception, all
these theories are equal in
value. Stars or torches, it is all one, all
merely an exalted naming;
those lights shine on, indifferent to what we
call them. My book is not
science—it is a dream. I am not even sure if
science is possible."
He paused a while to brood, and then went on.
"We think only those
thoughts that we have the words to express, but
we acknowledge that
limitation only by our wiifully foolish contention
that the words mean more
than they say; it is a pretty piece of sleight of
hand, that: it sustains our
illusions wonderfully, until, that is, the time
arrives when the sands have
run out, and the truth breaks in upon us.
Our lives—" he smiled
"—are a little journey through God's
His voice had become a
whisper, and it was plain to me that
guts .
he was talking to himself,
but then all at once he remembered me, and
turned on me fiercely,
waggmg a finger in my face. "Your Father
Luther recognised this
truth early on, and had not the courage to face
it; he tried to deny it, by
his pathetic and futile attempt to shatter the
form and thereby come at
the content, the essence. His was a defective
mind, Of course, and could
not comprehend the necessity for ritual,
and hence he castigated
Rome for its so-called blasphemy and idol-
worship. He betrayed the
people, took away their golden calf but gave
them no tablets of the law
in its place. Now wc are seeing the results of
Luther's folly, when the
peasantry is in revolt all over Europe. You
wonder why I will not
publish? The people will laugh at my book, or
that mangled version of it
which filters down to them from the univer-
sities. The people always
mistake at first the frightening for the comic
thing. But very soon they will
come to see what it is that I have done, I
mean what they will imagine
I have done, diminished Earth, made of it
merely another planet among
planets; they will begin to despise the
world, and something will
die, and out of that death will come death.
You do not know what I am
talking about, do you, Rheticus? You are a
fool, like the rest ...
like myself."
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