Crüger to Müller, 9 August 1622
Peter Crüger, “Crüger to Müller, 9 August 1622,” Nova Kepleriana 4, August 9, 1622, 107, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/aahv1.
Nova Kepleriana 4 9 Aug, 1622, p. 107 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
Having read the fourth book of Kepler's *Epitome* more than once, Crüger still cannot understand its proportions of the planetary orbs and bodies, and suspects Kepler of obscuring things on purpose.
Source: Peter Crüger's letter to Philipp Müller of 9 August 1622, written at Danzig after he had received the fourth book of Kepler's Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae (1620), on the proportions of the planetary orbs and bodies. The original is in the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire, Paris (B, 1, 9; 89, 9. D. 26). Printed in extracts in Nova Kepleriana 4, ed. Walther von Dyck and Max Caspar, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Math.-naturw. Abteilung 31, no. 1 (Munich, 1927), 107.
Transcribed from: the page images of the 1927 printing.
Only the Latin is given; the editors’ German commentary and notes are left out. The 1927 edition prints only extracts. Each paragraph below is one of its extracts, and the omission marks (…) are the editors’. Spaced type, which the editors used for emphasis, is given in italics.
English translation of the Latin extracts printed in Nova Kepleriana 4 (1927), made for Plain Old Text. Each paragraph translates the corresponding extract of the original; the omission marks (…) are the 1927 editors’. Italics follow the editors’ emphasis.
Librum Astronomiae Kepplerianae quartum accepi … Legi, nec semel, quae de proportione Orbium et Corporum Planetariorum Kepplerus citatis abs te locis infert. Lectio decies repetita placebit, ait Poëta. Sed haec vel centies repetita nondum intelligo. Et videtur autor more suo rem obscurare de industria … Considerabo tamen posthac per ocium omnia summis viribus, quamquam non video, cui bono. Nituntur enim haec fundamentis lubricis et meris conjecturis. Certiora forte deprehendemus in Astronomia Danica …
I have received the fourth book of Kepler’s AstronomyBook IV of the Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae (1620), on celestial physics. … I have read, and more than once, what Kepler argues about the proportions of the planetary orbs and bodies in the places you cited. “Read ten times over, it will please,” says the Poet.Horace, Ars poetica 365: haec decies repetita placebit. But these things, even read a hundred times over, I still do not understand. And the author seems, as is his way, to obscure the matter on purpose … Still, I shall consider everything hereafter at leisure, with all my strength, though I do not see to what end. For these things rest on slippery foundations and mere conjectures. We shall perhaps find surer things in the Astronomia Danica …