Enlightenment (Ode to Sir Thomas Browne)

 

{I have included this poem in the series Sixty Days, because it deals with the theme of respecting Science, an attitude that has taken our country to the moon and beyond.  It also points out how fragile the scientific mindset is.  While this seventeenth-century scholar was ahead of his time in scientific thinking, he could not escape his time’s common fears and biases.  Neither, it appears, can we.

I came up with the idea for this poem from this JStor article, from which many of the details are stolen:

Sir Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors.  “Vulgar Errors” is the name of his book, which printed six editions.}

 

Six editions,

While you lived!

A scientist

In your day,

 

(Or, Natural

Philosopher,)

Condemning

Vulgar Errors:

 

You showed a toad

Would eat a spider,

Rather than duel

In poisons;

 

You cast doubt

On the unicorn,

Hermaphroditic

Hare;

 

You coined exotic

Words from Latin:

Called things

What they were.

 

So modern a man,

So new, this creed:

To learn by

Observation!

 

And yet,

When called

To testify, you did.

Against a witch.

 

For both

Your observation

And your faith

Agreed:

 

She was.

 

 

 

Copyright Andrea LeDew 2017

 

For more in the series, see Sixty Days.  For another piece on olde-world superstitions, see Monsters and Demons.