Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767 – 1835) was a linguist and a philosopher of language who tells this story about naming. A peasant was listening to astronomy students as they were discussing the stars. At one point the peasant turned to the students and said,

“Look, I understand that people have measured the distance from the Earth to the most distant stars with these instruments; that they have identified their distribution and movement. What I want to know is this. How they learned their names?”

L. S. Vygotsky (marxists.org) Page 255

In this poem I reimagine that encounter on a Cumbrian fell as it might have been recorded by one of the Lake Poets. I am not sure who. But it would have to have been one of the lesser poets!

We all know Wordsworth. But do we really understand words’ worth?

THE STATESMAN AND THE STARS

I knew them by their knock as gentlemen.

Not bailiffs hammering to let them in,

Nor timid taps from poor men seeking work – 

But firm and fair, to ask of me a favour.



These educated men who mapped the skies

Had need of me to guide them over land

To fell-tops far removed from lights of men

So they could take the measure of the stars.  



I took the drovers path, well trod by me

Whenever I had need to tend my flocks.

We made good conversation and good time

While servants lagged and lugged the baggage train.



When camp was made and instruments all set

The servants did not need my help to find 

Their lodgings at the inn well-lit below.

And so I stayed to study lights above.



There was a question, nagged and gnawed at me

As I observed and listened to them talk.

“Orion’s Belt, Andromeda, Draco,

Polaris, Betelgeuse.” And so I spoke.



“I understand the angles that you use

To calculate the distance to the stars

And measure how they move across the void,

But cannot fathom how you learned their NAMES!”



They mocked me for my ignorance and said,

“The stars were named for gods in ancient days

When men looked up and wondered at the skies.

The Greek and Arab scholars wrote them down.”



Thus silenced, still I thought that names told truths

Held deep within de rerum natura. 

And should the gods come back down from the stars,

Then we would learn what names they gave to us! 

Notes

Statesmen were the freeborn landed peasantry of the Lake District, who clung fiercely to their independence in Wordsworth’s day.

De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things is a poem by the Roman Philosopher, Lucretius.