We usually start with this song. It’s great for sound check because it’s got passages where almost all the instruments and voices sound together as if in a communal shout that we are present “now and here” – the moment and the place that holds memories, hopes and perceptions together linked in an ordered symphony, a monologue of many discourses, a coherent oneness made of joined multitudes, the beauty of the complex cosmos held on the parchments of Galilei.
A direct translation of this song’s title is “through asperity to the stars” – what does this expression mean to you? The famous latin expression is translatable into a recognition that human beings can get very far by appreciating their obstacles and difficulties as useful in their paths. Imagine how hard it is to go up a smooth slide and how easy on those regular asperities we call stairs. Upward directions are conceptually linked with growth and development which is why they make such great metaphors. Per aspera ad astra is one of the first songs by Haggard that we have learned and played together. Every mistake we’ve made along the way has taken us closer to mastering our instruments and our techniques. We’ve had to work with ourselves and with each other. We’ve had to use our attention, our determination and our persistence to move forward. Friendship certainly helps. So does a shared passion.
Haggard plays this song on their album “Eppur si muove” – about the life of Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). The lyrics start by depicting Galileo as a prisoner in his own home, where he spent most of his life, as sentenced by the Catholic Inquisition in 1633. At the time, religious authorities having a major influence in state affairs and in establishing for everyone what the truth is, believed at the time the ancient geocentric theory of Ptolemy, that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun was the one rotating around us. It was hard for them to face the revolution of ideas that Galileo was going to bring through his scientific research and astronomical observations. It was hard because they would have had to admit their mistakes and a subsequent loss of faith in them would have weakened their political power.
Pressured by the Inquisition and threatened with torture, Galileo still refused to give up the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, according to which the Earth and the other known planets revolved around the sun. In 1610 he had published detailed notes on his astronomical observations of Jupiter and its moons, our Moon and other planets, which he’d watched with his telescope: “Old table covered with parchments and rolls. The Great One has children of war: Callisto Europa Ganymede and Io. The bright universe to adore” He could appreciate the presence of these „titans” in the proximity of Earth because they get hit by asteroids and comets coming from outside our solar system, so we are spared.
Instead of being appreciated for his contributions to scientific advancements, he was declared a heretic, tried and banned from teaching. The threat of violence against him appears in the following verse:“His theories and knowledge mean danger in these times and those accused of heresy will no longer be alive. Hide, hide your secrets well for in your darkest hour you should dwell.”
The harshness of his social fate did not stop Galileo from continuing his work. He anchors himself in palpable evidence and dares to notice and not to fear but to cherish the transformations in human thought and the subsequent scientific advancement they bring along:“Now I am here: old theory that has been wrong”. A declaration of trust in the cosmic order can be inferred from the verses: “power of the Universe will take me to the place where I belong”. He is confident that celestial bodies have a longer existence than these human beings who deny the obvious. He trusts that they will someday be forced to acknowledge it: “As the night steps aside and a new dawn will break silently a new age of science awakes” – someday, the “clouds of lies and fear” will no longer be an obstacle to the revelation of the truth, because the existence of these people who oppose the truth today is as brief as a passing cloud, compared to the span of the celestial order. The verse highlights the endurance of the scientific method and its capacity to penetrate through myths people live by. Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s largest moons: Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io represent natural guides to orient the astronomer. They are also a metaphor for sources of hope that his personal sacrifice and efforts will lead to something precious for humanity: “In my deepest hours of darkness they will shine endlessly – splenderanno - per aspera, ad astra”.
Observing celestial bodies improves his state of mind facing the suffering provoked by the Inquisition. His “old dungeon” in which he lives his life in captivity represents his actual imprisonment, but also a metaphoric representation of the dark ages. When“hidden from all the light” humanity locks itself in sin and error. The lack of sound knowledge leads the Inquisition to commit some of the biggest mistakes that human beings have kept making along history – to condemn and kill the best of their kind, seeing them as threats to the human order that’s mistaken for the divine.
In his hidden and dark chamber, Galileo is accompanied by “thirteen candles” that“enlighten the dark”. While this seems to be merely a descriptive phrase, perhaps the candlelight and the number thirteen are not without a symbolic charge: supposedly, thirteen is an unlucky odd number and candle light could represent knowledge, so one interpretation could be that his understanding of science has brought him misfortune in the dark times of a society in which he lived at the time. The oppositions between candlelight and daylight may as well suggest oppositions between man-made and divine knowledge, the short human existence and the cosmic eternity, or frailty and power and so on. Each time we listen to these verses, they bring up slightly different concepts and ideas for us to reflect upon. We play again and again to see what it speaks to us about each time. Participation in music with all our being, just like participation in repetitive religious ceremonies, brings about new revelations, because our understanding grows with persistence in our search.
A likely reference to the Platonic myth of the cave is made in the following verse:“shadows are playing their games on the wall and a shimmering glow fills the arch”. Plato presents the distinction between belief and knowledge of truth through the allegory of a cave in which the prisoners have lived their entire lives chained to watch shadows projected on a wall from behind them, by others, carrying puppets and objects in front of a fire. The prisoners believe what they see is reality, since they have never seen otherwise and are unaware of how the setting and their position in it influence their perception. Nor do they realise there is a world out there they know nothing about just yet. Plato supposes that if one of the prisoners managed to escape and become aware of the cave, the shadows, the whole world outside of it, he'd be both delighted and blinded by the powerful sunlight. So if it were for him to return to the cave and tell his fellows that there is a bigger more spectacular world out there they not only would disbelieve him but also fear becoming disoriented. Plato uses this complex metaphor to explain why people are so resistant to the advancement of scientific inquiry and why they would rather believe illusions, lies and familiar narratives. Galileo was one of those who dared “step out” of the dark.
Have you been in any way inspired by our literary comment on this beautiful piece of work? Do you see anything else that is interesting in the Per Aspera Ad Astra? Perhaps you can take a moment a reflection and consider the asperities in your own life. How might these hardships help you advance in your development, in reaching your goals in bringing you closer to the stars — whatever stars may represent for you?