Müller to Bartsch, 8 May 1631
Philipp Müller, “Müller to Bartsch, 8 May 1631,” Nova Kepleriana 4, May 8, 1631, 103–104, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/fmr23.
Nova Kepleriana 4 8 May, 1631, p. 103–104 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
Müller replies to Bartsch about the copies he has received and their prices, advises printing the second volume of the *Ephemerides* at home, sends a gift for Kepler's grandson, and quotes Crüger's excuse for writing no poem on Kepler's death.
Source: Philipp Müller's reply to Jacob Bartsch, written at Leipzig on 8 May 1631: on the tables and copies Bartsch had sent, the second volume of the Ephemerides, a christening gift for Kepler's grandson, and the funeral poems for Kepler, with a passage quoted from a letter of Peter Crüger. The letter is among the Kepler manuscripts at the Pulkovo Observatory (vol. XI), where von Dyck found it. 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), 103–104.
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.
Greetings and my services. Most famous and most excellent Sir, father of my godson and dear friend.
There is no one who does not understand how much the tumults of war must disturb and distract one’s thoughts. God grant that these disturbances soon die down and, like a medical crisis, end well, in relief for the oppressed. Things being so, why make so many excuses to me and account for your long silence? Rather, I thank you that, even in this chain of business of yours, you did not mind writing to me so fully about each point, adding the most welcome gift of the appendix to the tables, the manual and the wedding poem. I shall let no chance slip of repaying it in due time. For now I find nothing to give in return but sincere thanks. …
I have received, as you write, 30 copies of the Appendix to the Tables in the smaller format and 20 in the larger. I wish you had added the price; for I do not take so much on myself as to decide about what is yours. What it is fair to sell them for, you, who spent the money and the labour, will know best of all. … I was also handed 8 copies of the Rudolphine Tables, which I shall either keep with me or sell, as many as I can, at the price fixed by R., 2 thalers 4 groschen, or dearer, if anyone bids more. Indeed most of my students who have the means for it have already got them elsewhere. But the two copies on writing paper that you mention in your letter I did not find in the packet; perhaps they were forgotten and left at home. Otherwise I should have kept one of them for myself at the said 2 thalers 14 silver groschen. For the rest, I am surprised that your appendix is printed in a larger and a smaller folio; why not in the same format that matches the Tables? …
I do not know whether your request will provide the costs of the second volume of the Ephemerides. If I were in your place, since you have the equipment and the printing workmen at hand, I should follow your father-in-law’s example: print it at home and then sell it to the booksellers, singly or together as the matter allowed. Perhaps the first volume has already played a prelude to your fame among the Strasbourg booksellers. No doubt the next will sell the better for this fame.
To my little godson I send here a slight keepsake of what passed between us, and some token, such as it is, of my goodwill, with my repeated wish that he may grow up finely, to the honour of God and the joy of his parents, and in time follow keenly in the footsteps of his grandfather and his father. I thank you again, too, for the honour of godfatherhood, if I may call it so, that you did me in this. I wish I could show you this mind of mine in more ways. Though the strength be lacking, the will shall always be there.After Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto 3.4.79: “though the strength be lacking, the will is to be praised.”
I send the funeral poems on the death of your father-in-law, of pious memory. I ought to add my own; but somehow the same thing happens to me that Crüger of Danzig complains of in his last letter, in these words:
“As for your thinking that I have a store of the Muses at hand to adorn the dead man’s tomb, I am sorry to say you are mistaken. My poetic vein dried up long ago, so that you would sooner squeeze water from a pumice stoneProverbial since Plautus (Persa 41). than any poetic juice from it. Nor will you have seen a single little verse composed by me these last three years; indeed I have, as it were, bound myself by a vow, bidding farewell to poetry. So please hold me excused, and lay on me other tasks within my power.”
So he. As for me, I shall send something, if not much. I believe there will still be time enough.