Book Review: Horrocks on the Transit of Venus: Venus Seen on the Sun: The First Observation of a Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks

HORROCKS ON THE TRANSIT OF VENUS Venus Seen on the Sun: The First Observation of a Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks. Translated by Wilbur Applebaum (Medieval and Early Modern Science, xviii; Brill, Leiden, 2012). Pp. xxiv + 82. $136. ISBN 978-90-04-22193-2.Why this pricey little book when this stuff is available for free? That was my attitude in initially opening Wilbur Applebaum's new translation of Jeremiah Horrocks's report on the 1639 transit of Venus. Today rare is no longer rare. If I want to read Horrocks's Venus, I can call forth from the internet A. B. Whatton's 1859 translation (http:/faooks.google.com/books?id=P04BAAAAQAAJ); if that is not good enough, I can summon up Johannes Hevelius's 1662 Latin publication, too (http://books. google.com/books ?id=rl9DAAAAcAAJ). Why another?Upon actually reading the book, the reasons why became obvious. This is not just a re-translation of the Hevelius/Whatton publications. As Applebaum explains, Horrocks wrote three drafts of Venus. Hevelius published (and Whatton then translated) the second. The third was more polished, but Horrocks died before completing it. Applebaum uses the third to assemble something largely new. For example, chap. 4, where Horrocks assures the reader that he observed Venus and not a sunspot, is shorter and more direct in Applebaum than in Hevelius/Whatton, and Applebaum's chap. 18 is not in Hevelius/Whatton at all.And even in chapters absent from the third draft, where Applebaum is producing a re-translation, the translation is much improved. Wherever we (I thank Christina Graney for her assistance in evaluating the translation) did a careful comparison, if noticeable differences existed between Applebaum and Whatton, Applebaum had the more faithful rendition. For example, Horrocks discusses how a star vanishes confestim, & quasi ictu oculi [Hevelius, 139] when the Moon occults it. Applebaum's translation (p. 63) follows the Latin flawlessly: immediately, and as if in the blink of an eye; Whatton (p. 198) renders this as very suddenly. Worse, in the same paragraph, Whatton has Horrocks speaking of the stars being covered with a dark shade, but Horrocks is discussing the Moon's dark edge occulting a star, as Applebaum's translation makes clear. Whatton translates Horrocks 's ode to Kepler so freely that it is really Whatton's ode, inspired by Horrocks. Applebaum produces an ode faithful to Horrocks's Latin.This greater fidelity comes at no cost to readability - Applebaum's translation is delightful. …