quested that he might get their portraits as shown on the new tapestries at Kronborg, the king's painter was to be ordered to copy all the portraits and Danish and German rhymes on the tapestries.[1] Possibly Tycho may have wished to find some work for his newly-acquired printing-office, but if he really intended preparing a work on the geography and history of Denmark, he never carried out this plan. It seems, however, more probable that he had intended to assist his friend Vedel, who just at that time was collecting materials of this kind in connection with the work on Danish history on which he was engaged.
In return for all the kindness shown by the king, Tycho from, time to time rendered such service to his patron as he was able to offer. Thus his name is associated with the castle of Kronborg by a couple of Latin poems with which he ornamented this favourite building of the king. On one of the gables was placed a lengthy versified inscription praying for a long life and success to the builder and his work; on the dial of a clock in one of the towers he put these lines:
"Transvolat hora levis neque scit fugitiva reverti,
Nostra simul properans vita caduca fugit."[2]
Tycho was scarcely settled at Uraniborg before the king wished to consult him. In September 1578 he wrote to the astronomer from Skanderborg, in Jutland, that it was said by the common people about that place that a new star
- ↑ Visitors to Copenhagen may still see some of these tapestries in the upper storey of the Museum of Northern Antiquities. They were made between 1581 and 1584 from designs by Hans Knieper of Antwerp, whom we have mentioned above as having painted part of the picture on Tycho's mural quadrant. The tapestries (which originally numbered 111) represent each a Danish king in full figure, with the name and a short account of his reign in German rhymes above.
- ↑ Pontoppidan's Danske Atlas, tom. ii. (1764), p. 272 et seq. A poem with which Tycho ornamented one of the clocks in the study at Stjerneborg is printed in Epist. Astron., p. 245.
