Ode on This Splendid Ornament of Our Time and Our Nation, the Mathematico-Physical Treatise by the Eminent Isaac Newton

 

Behold the pattern of the heavens, and the balances of the divine structure;

Behold Jove’s calculation and the laws

That the creator of all things, while he was setting the beginnings of the world, would not violate;

Behold the foundations he gave to his works.

Heaven has been conquered and its innermost secrets are revealed;

The force that turns the outermost orbs around is no longer hidden.

The Sun sitting on his throne commands all things

To tend downward toward himself, and does not allow the chariots of the heavenly bodies to move

Through the immense void in a straight path, but hastens them all along

In unmoving circles around himself as center.

Now we know what curved path the frightful comets have;

No longer do we marvel at the appearances of a bearded star.

From this treatise we learn at last why silvery Phoebe moves at an unequal pace,

Why, till now, she has refused to be bridled by the numbers of any astronomer,

Why the nodes regress, and why the upper apsides move forward.

We learn also the magnitude of the forces with which wandering Cynthia

Impels the ebbing sea, while its weary waves leave the seaweed far behind

And the sea bares the sands that sailors fear, and alternately beat high up on the shores.

The things that so often vexed the minds of the ancient philosophers

And fruitlessly disturb the schools with noisy debate

We see right before our eyes, since mathematics drives away the cloud.

Error and doubt no longer encumber us with mist;

For the keenness of a sublime intelligence has made it possible for us to enter

The dwellings of the gods above and to climb the heights of heaven.

 

Mortals arise, put aside earthly cares,

And from this treatise discern the power of a mind sprung from heaven,

Far removed from the life of beasts.

He who commanded us by written tablets to abstain from murder,

Thefts, adultery, and the crime of bearing false witness,

Or he who taught nomadic peoples to build walled cities, or he who enriched the nations with the gift of Ceres,

Or he who pressed from the grape a solace for cares,

Or he who with a reed from the Nile showed how to join together

Pictured sounds and to set spoken words before the eyes,

Exalted the human lot less, inasmuch as he was concerned with only a few comforts of a wretched life,

And thus did less than our author for the condition of mankind.

But we are now admitted to the banquets of the gods;

We may deal with the laws of heaven above; and we now have

The secret keys to unlock the obscure earth; and we know the immovable order of the world

And the things that were concealed from the generations of the past.

 

O you who rejoice in feeding on the nectar of the gods in heaven,

Join me in singing the praises of NEWTON, who reveals all this,

Who opens the treasure chest of hidden truth,

NEWTON, dear to the Muses,

The one in whose pure heart Phoebus Apollo dwells and whose mind he has filled with all his divine power;

No closer to the gods can any mortal rise.

 

Edm. Halley