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TYCHO BRAHE.

already quoted,[1] and a long poem "Ad Daniam Elegia," in which he taxes his native land with having rewarded him with ingratitude. It begins thus:[2]

"Dania, quid merui, quo te, mea Patria, læsi
     Usque adeo ut rebus sis minus æqua meis?
 Scilicet illud erat, tibi quo nocuisse reprendar,
     Quo majus per me nomen in orbe geras?
 Dic age, quis pro te tot tantaque fecerat ante,
     Ut veheret famam cuncta per astra tuam?"

The writer next inquires who is to make use of the precious things which he has left behind. "Somebody has been sent to Hveen who was believed to know Urania's secrets; he came, and when he beheld the great sights (though but a few are left), he stared with wonder. What could an ignorant man do, who had never seen such things? He inquires their name and use, but lest he should seem to have been sent thither in vain, he sneers at what he does not comprehend, probably instructed by my enemy, who already before has injured me." The poem further alludes to all he has done for science, and how little his Herculean labours have been valued; how he has cured the sick without payment, and suggests that this perhaps has roused the envy of his enemies. He regrets that his ungrateful country shall lose the honour which he conferred on it, but he looks to the future without fear, as the whole world will be his country and he will be appreciated everywhere. He exonerates the king from all blame, but there are a few others whom he never injured, but who yet have done him all the harm they could. Finally, he thanks Rantzov for having so hospitably received him.

The statement about the interruption of the observations

  1. De occasione interruptarum observationum et discessus mei. Historia Cœlestis, pp. 801–802.
  2. Ibid., p. 802, also in Resenii Inscript. Hafnienses (1668), p. 347, and in Casseburg, Tychonis Brahe relatio de statu suo, &c. Jena, 1730, less correctly given by Gassendi, p. 143.