⚠Page has significant water staining and foxing throughout the center and bottom left.

On the Reverend Father Athanasius Kircher’s

ECSTATIC JOURNEY.

It is a fable that Icarus died by flying to the Heavens:

Yet it would be no fable that he gave his name to the waters,

If it were not a fable that he flew with wings of wax.

But it is no fable that by his own Genius he has traversed the Heavens,

ATHANASIUS KIRCHER.

Indeed, it would be a fable if he had not soared beyond human understanding;

Unless it were a fable that his Genius does not exceed

The near-reach of human grasp.

How much more happily than Icarus KIRCHER has flown,

See in the Journey of each.

Icarus marked the record of his Journey in the waters:

But so fluidly, that you may read nothing besides his name,

In the waters;

For all else has long since flowed away with the waves:

For where, or by what way he flew, not even the waters themselves know.

Thus, indeed, a fabled journey deserved to be marked.

But KIRCHER the account and path of his Journey

Has marked in a Book;

Where he has left both his name and his Journey.

And not wrongly, that it is in a Book;

Since his entire Pilgrimage was made

In a Book and through a Book,

The author is using the "Book of Nature" metaphor, common in the 17th century, where the universe is viewed as a text written by God.

Whose leaves, as he himself says,

Are white or blue by day, and black by night;

The characters are golden, namely the stars themselves;

The Book’s Typesetter is the TRIUNE GOD;

The Workshop from which it came is the Archetypal Mind of GOD.

original: "Mens DEI Archetypa" — a Platonic concept referring to the original divine blueprint of the universe.

Whose index and summary is Man;

Its Censor is He who, seeing what He had made, saw that it was good.

A reference to the Creator in Genesis; the "Censor" here is God approving His own creation.