SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE PETER D. USHER Copyright 2010 Peter D. Usher All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permis- sion of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to: [email protected], or mailed to: Cambria Press 20 Northpointe Parkway, Suite 188 Amherst, NY 14228 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Usher, Peter D. Shakespeare and the dawn of modern science / Peter D. Usher. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60497-733-2 (alk. paper) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Literature and science. 3. Astronomy in literature. 4. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616— Symbolism. I. Title. PR3047.U84 2010 822.3’3—dc22 2010040039 To Barbara TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ix List of Tables xiii Foreword xv Preface xix Acknowledgments xxvii Chapter 1: The New Astronomy 1 Chapter 2: Love’s Labour’s Lost 43 Chapter 3: Hamlet 69 Chapter 4: Cymbeline 171 Chapter 5: The Merchant of Venice 231 Chapter 6: The Winter’s Tale 255 Chapter 7: The Resolution Revolution 307 Notes 331 Works Cited 359 Illustration Credits 375 Index 377 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. The bounded geocentric model according to Peter Apian, from Cosmographia (1539). 5 Figure 1.2. Retrograde motion of Saturn relative to background stars. 6 Figure 1.3. (a) (Upper) If circle AB represents the Earth’s orbit, an observer moving from A to B will detect a larger angle AOB when object O is closer. By convention, one-half of angle AOB is the parallax angle. (b) (Lower) Two objects “O” lying on the Firmament (the supposed eighth sphere of the stars) appear farther apart when the Earth is closer (angle ObO) than when it is more distant (angle OaO). 7 Figure 1.4. The bounded heliocentric model of Nicholas Copernicus, from De Revolutionibus (1543). 13 Figure 1.5. Planetary alignments for heliocentric orbits. The position of the Earth at E is shown relative to a Superior Planet (like Mars) in the outer orbit and an Inferior Planet (like Venus) in the inner orbit. Relative to the Sun-Earth direction, a Superior Planet can be at Opposition (O) or Conjunction (C); and an Inferior Planet can be at Inferior Conjunction (IC), Superior Conjunction (SC), Maximum Eastern Elongation (MEE), or Maximum Western Elongation (MWE). 14 x SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE Figure 1.6. The bounded geo-heliocentric model of Tycho Brahe, from Liber Secundus (1588). 19 Figure 1.7. The unbounded heliocentric model of Thomas Digges, from A Perfi t Description (1576). 21 Figure 1.8. Relative sizes of the Earth, Sun, Moon and planets, from Prognostication Everlasting (1576). 27 Figure 1.9. Gainer’s experimental telescope built according to Digges’ design with materials and tools available in the sixteenth century (f/8, 4.5-inch aperture, 1-inch plano-convex eyepiece, and magnifi cation 36). 31 Figure 1.10. Detail from Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius (1610) illustrating Jupiter and its four moons. 34 Figure 1.11. Cartoons illustrating Saturn’s image: (a) (Uppermost) as it appeared to Galileo in 1610, (b) (middle) how he interpreted what he saw, and (c) (nethermost) how the planet would have appeared at the time if his spyglass had had better optics. 35 Figure 1.12. Saturn on January 14, 2007, imaged by a Toscano 8-inch (200 mm) telescope. The image is a sum of 504 separate images each of 1/25 second exposure and shows the Cassini gap separating the inner brighter B-ring and the outer fainter List of Figures xi A-ring. These rings lie respectively from 92,200 to 117,500 and from 121,000 to 136,200 kilometers (57,300 to 73,000 and 75,200 to 84,600 miles) from the center of Saturn yet are only a few hundred meters (yards) thick. The equatorial radius of Saturn is 60,000 kilometers (37,300 miles). For comparison, the Earth’s equatorial radius is 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles). 36 Figure 1.13. Saturn and its rings depicted by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft on July 21, 1981, when the spacecraft was 34 million kilometers (21 million miles) from the planet. 37 Figure 1.14. Illustration of successive phases of the “dark star” Venus seen from Earth as both orbit the Sun (see fi gure 1.5). (Top left) Venus is just past its farthest point from the Earth (Superior Conjunction), so its image is relatively small and gibbous. (Top middle) The image becomes larger and less gibbous as it approaches the Earth and reaches maximum elongation. (Top right) The image becomes crescent. (Bottom row) Venus appears larger and its phase more crescent as it nears its closest point to the Earth (Inferior Conjunction). 38 Figure 2.1. The Moon as seen through Gainer’s reconstruction of the Digges telescope (exposure 1/20 sec, ISO 100, 5-megapixel camera, good seeing). 63 xii SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE Figure 3.1. Image of the Sun showing sunspots. 81 Figure 3.2. Lunar Opposition and Conjunction with the Sun, illustrating the meaning of Op-heli-a. 87 Figure 3.3. First de Gheyn engraving of Tycho Brahe for his 40th birthday (1586), from Huizinga. 123 Figure 3.4. Second de Gheyn engraving of Tycho Brahe (1586). 123 Figure 3.5. On the left, Jupiter as it appeared to a ground- based observer in 2002. For comparison, the image on the right shows its appearance in 2000 as recorded by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. In both images, the oval blemish in the southern hemisphere is the Great Red Spot. In the Cassini image, the shadow of the Galilean moon Europa appears to the west of the Great Red Spot. Jupiter’s equatorial radius is 71,400 kilometers (44,400 miles). For comparison, the Earth’s equatorial radius is 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles). 142 Figure 7.1. Reproduction of a sketch of Shakspere’s coat of arms based on the original drawn in 1596 by the Garter King of Arms (see e.g., Michell 72–73). The punning crest features a falcon shaking a spear, and above are the words Non, Sanz Droict (“No, without right”), a variation of the intended Non Sanz Droict (“Not without right”). 318 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1. Character identifi cations in Hamlet. 71 Table 3.2. Model personifi cations in Hamlet. 72 Table 3.3. Chronology of Act 1 of Hamlet: astronomical events and dates at Elsinore in November 1572. 101 Table 3.4. Imputed roles in the players’ play. 137 Table 3.5. Tabular properties of Yorick and Yaughan. 158 Table 4.1. Bird hierarchies in Cymbeline. 185 Table 4.2. Correspondence between Galileo’s chief results in Sidereus Nuncius and Giacomo’s descriptions in Cymbeline. 203 Table 4.3. Inferred correspondence between diamond ring exchanges and Saturn ring changes in Cymbeline. 229 Table 6.1. Chronology of Hermione’s pregnancy (± ½ day) in The Winter’s Tale. 260 Table 6.2. Ages and epochs on stage. 267 Table 6.3. Determination of the epoch on stage of acts 1 to 3 of The Winter’s Tale. 285 xiv SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE Table 6.4. Role of integer pairs [10, 23] and [19, 22] for basis year 1578. 289 Table 6.5. Principal dates in Act 4 of The Winter’s Tale. 295 Table 7.1. A sample of published years of death of Leonard Digges the Elder. 312 FOREWORD The centers of learning in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centu- ries are usually associated with the great universities in Italy, France, and Germany, whereas London has been considered, more or less, a backwa- ter of intellectual activity. It was, however, due to the infl uence of the well-educated and enlightened Queen Elizabeth that new openness to and encouragement of new ways of thinking began to thrive through- out England. This was particularly true in the fi elds of mathematics and natural philosophy. It was in England, a generation before Galileo in Italy, that John Dee was applying empiricism as a means to investigate nature. This approach was anathema at many of the major philosophical centers. Although bet- ter known as a mystic and necromancer, Dee was also an exceptional mathematician, an experimenter in optics and ballistic trajectories, and Europe’s foremost authority on mathematical methods of celestial navigation. Leonard Digges and his son Thomas were infl uenced by Dee’s empir- ical approach, and they contributed their own signifi cant advances in xvi SHAKESPEARE AND THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE mathematics, computational astronomy, and optics. Their surviving pub- lications indicate that they constructed an elementary form of a refl ect- ing telescope and used it for astronomical observations. Thomas Harriot was an outstanding mathematician of whom little is known because he was reluctant to publish his work. It is known, however, that he made telescopic observations of the Moon prior to those of Galileo. Shakespeare, a participant in this new wave of intellectual curios- ity, would have known of the major philosophical debates of this time and would have been infl uenced by some of those who addressed them. Among the foremost of these issues were the differences between helio- centric and geocentric model Universes and between the application of empiricism vs.