DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

I wish that now, with weapons finally laid down, a truce from our miseries might be granted so that good men would have the leisure to devise something similar to that counsel of Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), the Roman statesman and philosopher who turned to writing during political exile.. He, after the Roman Republic was overturned—when his grief was nearly inconsolable amidst the loss of all things and the despair of recovering them—saw that there was no place for the art he had studied, neither in the Senate original: "Curia" nor in the forum. Consequently, he turned all his care and effort toward Philosophy, advising his friend Sulpicius to engage in the same pursuits; for even if they were of less practical use, they might still draw the mind away from anxiety and relieve it from troubles.

If God grants these prayers, my Mathematics will always be ready to propose pleasures not unworthy of a Christian man—solaces for our labors—whether from astronomical exercises, the contemplation of divine works, or from my Harmony of the World original: "Harmonice Mundi," Kepler's 1619 masterpiece relating planetary motion to musical harmony.. I call that work my "fated occupation," written as it was amidst the harshest dissonances A metaphor for the political and religious strife of the time. of the past two years. But because this Astronomical occupation was begun so that it might be perfected, what should it do in this most calamitous state of Austria? Should it not seek the protections it needs to publish works among men and to assert the name of Rudolph Emperor Rudolph II, Kepler's former patron. through the perpetual Tables? Restrained by shame from asking for everything from those who are afflicted or even from those who command, let it instead gather support from those places where these disasters and the most horrible expiations of celestial portents Kepler likely refers to the Great Comet of 1618, which many interpreted as a bad omen for the war. have not reached. Finally, let it run the remaining half of the journey to those former patrons whom it had already approached halfway in the year 1612. This little book once set out from Styria, as I said, to Brahe Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), the Danish astronomer whose data Kepler used.—that is, to hasten the work of the Rudolphine Tables—with me as its bearer. What would you do that is unusual, Nobles, or so foreign to your former purpose, or what would you do that is not pleasing to the August Emperor Ferdinand, the successor of Rudolph after Matthias, if you now listen to this returning little book? It is your old client, reporting on the things achieved in the meantime. If you undertake to promote, with modest liberality, the laborious and anxious Work of the Tables—the delights of the human race—and the name and honors of Emperor Rudolph; if the House of Austria, not shaken even by this most heavy upheaval, does not dismiss this most ancient patronage of the Mathematical disciplines, nor yield it to foreigners, with your reinforced providence intervening?

Therefore, let this be the repeated aim of this dedication. If I attain it from your magnificence, Nobles, it will be the greatest omen to me that—before I bring the Rudolphine Tables to light, placing this finishing touch original: "colophone" on the restoration of Astronomy—the ancient quintet Referring to the five core Austrian provinces: Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. of Austrian provinces will flourish again in its former splendor. This restoration, occurring under Ferdinand II less than sixty years after the passing of Ferdinand I, would see civil wars suppressed and the best peace restored. This is an omen that, despite the anxieties caused by present evils, does not [lightly...]