PREFACE TO THE EMPEROR

...the most important things, and that you do not feel it a burden to preserve, protect, and promote them, so that to all Posterity, as long as the Sun and the Stars shall last, your name may shine and endure more illustriously. Since it is only from these things which are perpetual and constant, such as the Celestial things, that one is granted the ability to acquire a perpetual and constant name and glory. Other sublunary Referring to the region "below the moon," which in Aristotelian physics was the realm of change, decay, and imperfection, as opposed to the perfect and unchanging heavens and earthly things, just as they are subject to manifold changes, so too whatever glory is prepared from them is fleeting, wandering, and inconsistent; it is no rival to eternity, unlike these Celestial things of which I speak.

May that supreme and unfathomable original: "incompræhensibilis" author of these things deign to grant Your Imperial Majesty original: "Majestati tuæ Cæsareæ" a good mind, bodily health, peace, and an abundance of the goods of this World, along with a tranquil and happy empire, especially for His own glory and the illumination of the things created by Him, and for the benefit of your subjects—which I humbly and from my heart pray and vow. May Your Imperial Majesty fare well, and may you graciously accept this small New Year's gift original: "strenulam", which I present with all the strength and humble spirit and reverence I can muster.