I have been in my bed for five weeks, oppressed with weakness and other infirmities from which my age, seventy-four years, permits me not to hope release. Added to this (pro dolor! [O misery!]) The sight of my right eye — that eye whose labors (dare I say it) have had such glorious results — is forever lost. That of the left, which was and is imperfect, is rendered null by continual weeping.

Lettere di Galileo Galilei