Part 2

"Ring out, ye crystal spheres, Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the base of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony."[17]

Shakespeare lets every orb of the heavens send forth its note as it moves:

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;"[18]

Chaucer, too, makes all nine spheres participate:

"And after that the melodye herde he That cometh of thilke speres thryes three, That welle is of musyke and melodye In this world heer, and cause of armonye."[19]

Only in unusual circumstances can the music of the spheres be heard by mortal ears. In the lines just quoted the celestial melody is heard during a dream or vision. In _Troilus and Criseyde_, after Troilus' death his spirit is borne aloft to heaven whence he beholds the celestial orbs and hears the melody sent forth as they revolve:

"And ther he saugh, with ful avysement, The erratik sterres, herkeninge armonye With sownes fulle of hevenish melodye."[20]

3. _The Cardinal Points and the Regions of the World_

More primitive in origin than the harmony of the spheres are references to the four elements, to the divisions of the world, and to the cardinal points or quarters of the earth. Of these, probably the most primitive is the last. The idea of four cardinal points, the "before," the "behind," the "right," and the "left," later given the names North, South, East, and West, appears among peoples in their very earliest stages of civilization, and because of its great usefulness has remained and probably will remain throughout the history of the human race. Only one of Chaucer's many references to the cardinal points need be mentioned. In the _Man of Lawes Tale_ (B.491ff.) the cardinal points are first suggested by an allusion to the four 'spirits of tempest,' which were supposed to have their respective abodes in the four quarters of earth, and then specifically named in the lines following:

"Who bad the foure spirits of tempest, That power han tanoyen land and see, 'Bothe north and south, and also west and est, Anoyeth neither see, ne land, ne tree?'"

Of almost equal antiquity are ideas of the universe as a threefold world having heaven above, earth below, and a region of darkness and gloom beneath the earth. Chaucer usually speaks of the threefold world, the "tryne compas," as comprising heaven, earth and sea. Thus in the _Knightes Tale_:[21]

"'O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene, To whom bothe hevene and erthe and see is sene, Quene of the regne of Pluto derk and lowe,'"

Fame's palace is said to stand midway between heaven, earth and sea:

"Hir paleys stant, as I shal seye, Right even in middes of the weye Betwixen hevene, erthe, and see;"[22]

Again in _The Seconde Nonnes Tale_, the name 'tryne compas' is used of the threefold world and the three regions are mentioned:

"That of the tryne compas lord and gyde is, Whom erthe and see and heven, out of relees, Ay herien;"[23]

4. _Heaven, Hell and Purgatory_

In mediaeval cosmology ideas of heaven, hell, and purgatory, as more or less definitely located regions where the spirits of the dead were either rewarded or punished eternally, or were purged of their earthly sins in hope of future blessedness, play an important part. According to Dante's poetic conception hell was a conical shaped pit whose apex reached to the center of the earth, purgatory was a mountain on the earth's surface on the summit of which was located the garden of Eden or the earthly paradise, and heaven was a motionless region beyond space and time, the motionless sphere outside of the _primum mobile_, called the Empyrean.

Chaucer's allusions to heaven, hell and purgatory are frequent but chiefly incidental and give no such definite idea of their location as we find in the _Divine Comedy_. The nearest Chaucer comes to indicating the place of heaven is in _The Parlement of Foules_, 55-6, where Africanus speaks of heaven and then points to the galaxy:

"And rightful folk shal go, after they dye, To heven; and shewed him the galaxye."

Chaucer describes heaven as "swift and round and burning", thus to some extent departing from the conception of it usually held in his time:

"And right so as thise philosophres wryte That heven is swift and round and eek brenninge, Right so was fayre Cecilie the whyte."[24]

In using the terms "swift and round" Chaucer must have been thinking of the _primum mobile_ which, as we have seen, was thought to have a swift diurnal motion from east to west. His use of the epithet "burning" is in conformity with the mediaeval conception of the Empyrean, or heaven of pure light as it is described by Dante.

Chaucer does not describe the form and location of hell as definitely as does Dante, but the idea which he presents of it by incidental allusions, whether or not this was the view of it he himself held, is practically the one commonly held in his day. That hell is located somewhere within the depths of the earth is suggested in the _Knightes Tale_;[25]--

"His felawe wente and soghte him down in helle;"

and in the _Man of Lawes Tale_;[26]

"O serpent under femininitee, Lyk to the serpent depe in helle y-bounde,"

In the _Persones Tale_ hell is described as a horrible pit to which no natural light penetrates, filled with smoking flames and presided over by devils who await an opportunity to draw sinful souls to their punishment.[27] Elsewhere in the same tale the parson describes hell as a region of disorder, the only place in the world not subject to the universal laws of nature, and attributes this idea of it to Job:

"And eek Iob seith: that 'in helle is noon ordre of rule.' And al-be-it so that god hath creat alle thinges in right ordre, and no-thing with-outen ordre, but alle thinges been ordeyned and nombred; yet nathelees they that been dampned been no-thing in ordre, ne holden noon ordre."[28]

The word purgatory seldom occurs in a literal sense in Chaucer's poetry, but the figurative use of it is frequent. When the Wife of Bath is relating her experiences in married life she tells us that she was her fourth husband's purgatory.[29] The old man, Ianuarie[30], contemplating marriage, fears that he may lose hope of heaven hereafter, because he will have his heaven here on earth in the joys of wedded life. His friend Iustinus sarcastically tells him that perhaps his wife will be his purgatory, God's instrument of punishment, so that when he dies his soul will skip to heaven quicker than an arrow from the bow. To Arcite, released from prison on condition that he never again enter Theseus' lands, banishment will be a worse fate than the purgatory of life imprisonment, for then even the sight of Emelye will be denied him:

"He seyde, 'Allas that day that I was born! Now is my prison worse than biforn; Now is me shape eternally to dwelle Noght in purgatorie, but in helle.'"[31]

The idea of purgatory, not as a place definitely located like Dante's Mount of Purgatory, but rather as a period of punishment and probation, is expressed in these lines from _The Parlement of Foules_ (78-84):

"'But brekers of the lawe, soth to seyne, And lecherous folk, after that they be dede, Shul alwey whirle aboute therthe in peyne, Til many a world be passed, out of drede, And than, for-yeven alle hir wikked dede, Than shul they come unto that blisful place, To which to comen god thee sende his grace!'"

Chaucer uses the idea of paradise for poetical purposes quite as often as that of purgatory. He expresses the highest degree of earthly beauty or joy by comparing it with paradise. Criseyde's face is said to be like the image of paradise.[32] Again, in extolling the married life, the poet says that its virtues are such

"'That in this world it is a paradys.'"[33]

And later in the same tale, woman is spoken of as

"mannes help and his confort, His paradys terrestre and his disport."[34]

When Aeneas reaches Carthage he

"is come to Paradys Out of the swolow of helle, and thus in Ioye Remembreth him of his estat in Troye."[35]

Chaucer mentions paradise several times in its literal sense as the abode of Adam and Eve before their fall. In the _Monkes Tale_ we are told that Adam held sway over all paradise excepting one tree.[36] Again, the pardoner speaks of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise:

"Adam our fader, and his wyf also, Fro Paradys to labour and to wo Were driven for that vyce, it is no drede; For whyl that Adam fasted, as I rede, He was in Paradys; and whan that he Eet of the fruyt defended on the tree, Anon he was out-cast to we and peyne."[37]

5. _The Four Elements._

The idea of four elements[38] has its origin in the attempts of the early Greek cosmologists to discover the ultimate principle of reality in the universe.

Thales reached the conclusion that this principle was water, Anaximines, that it was air, and Heracleitus, fire, while Parmenides supposed two elements, fire or light, subtle and rarefied, and earth or night, dense and heavy. Empedocles of Agrigentum (about 450 B. C.) assumed as primary elements all four--fire, air, water, and earth--of which each of his predecessors had assumed only one or two. To explain the manifold phenomena of nature he supposed them to be produced by combinations of the elements in different proportions through the attractive and repulsive forces of 'love' and 'discord.' This arbitrary assumption of four elements, first made by Empedocles, persisted in the popular imagination throughout the Middle Ages and is, like other cosmological ideas of antiquity, sometimes reflected in the poetry of the time.

The elements in mediaeval cosmology were assigned to a definite region of the universe. Being mortal and imperfect they occupied four spheres below the moon, the elemental region or region of imperfection, as distinguished from the ethereal region above the moon. Immediately within the sphere of the moon came that of Fire, below this the Air, then Water, and lowest of all the solid sphere of Earth. Fire being the most ethereal of the elements constantly tends to rise upward, while Earth sinks towards the center of the universe. This contrast is a favorite idea with Dante, who says in the _Paradiso_ i. 112-117:

"'wherefore they move to diverse ports o'er the great sea of being, and each one with instinct given it to bear it on. This beareth the fire toward the moon; this is the mover in the hearts of things that die; this doth draw the earth together and unite it.'"

Elsewhere Dante describes the lightning as fleeing its proper place when it strikes the earth:

"'but lightning, fleeing its proper site, ne'er darted as dost thou who art returning thither.'"[39]

And again:

"'so from this course sometimes departeth the creature that hath power, thus thrust, to swerve to-ward some other part, (even as fire may be seen to dart down from the cloud) if its first rush be wrenched aside to earth by false seeming pleasure.'"[40]

The same thought of the tendency of fire to rise and of earth to sink is found in Chaucer's translation of Boethius:[41]

"Thou bindest the elements by noumbres proporcionables, ... that the fyr, that is purest, ne flee nat over hye, ne that the hevinesse ne drawe nat adoun over-lowe the erthes that ben plounged in the wateres."

Chaucer does not make specific mention of the spheres of the elements, but he tells us plainly that each element has been assigned its proper region from which it may not escape:

"For with that faire cheyne of love he bond The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee;"[42]

The position of the elements in the universe is nevertheless made clear without specific reference to their respective spheres. The spirit of the slain Troilus ascends through the spheres to the seventh heaven, leaving behind the elements:

"And whan that he was slayn in this manere, His lighte goost ful blisfully is went Up to the holownesse of the seventh spere, In converse letinge every element."[43]

"Every element" here obviously means the sphere of each element; "holownesse" means concavity and "in convers" means 'on the reverse side.' The meaning of the passage is, then, that Troilus' spirit ascends to the concave side of the seventh sphere from which he can look down upon the spheres of the elements, which have their convex surfaces towards him. This passage is of particular interest for the further reason that it shows that even in Chaucer's century people still thought of the spheres as having material existence.

The place and order of the elements is more definitely suggested in a passage from _Boethius_ in which philosophical contemplation is figuratively described as an ascent of thought upward through the spheres:

"'I have, forsothe, swifte fetheres that surmounten the heighte of hevene. When the swifte thought hath clothed it-self in the fetheres, it despyseth the hateful erthes, and surmounteth the roundnesse of the grete ayr; and it seeth the cloudes behinde his bak; and passeth the heighte of the region of the fyr, that eschaufeth by the swifte moevinge of the firmament, til that he areyseth him in-to the houses that beren the sterres, and ioyneth his weyes with the sonne Phebus, and felawshipeth the wey of the olde colde Saturnus.'"[44]

In this passage all the elemental regions except that of water are alluded to and in the order which, in the Middle Ages, they were supposed to follow. When in the _Hous of Fame_, Chaucer is borne aloft into the heavens by Jupiter's eagle, he is reminded of this passage in Boethius and alludes to it:

"And tho thoughte I upon Boece, That writ, 'a thought may flee so hye, With fetheres of Philosophye, To passen everich element; And whan he hath so fer y-went, Than may be seen, behind his bak, Cloud, and al that I of spak.'"[45]

Empedocles, as we have seen, taught that the variety in the universe was caused by the binding together of the four elements in different proportions through the harmonizing principle of love, or by their separation through hate, the principle of discord. We find this idea also reflected in Chaucer who obviously got it from Boethius. Love is the organizing principle of the universe; if the force of love should in any wise abate, all things would strive against each other and the universe be transformed into chaos.[46]

The elements were thought to be distinguished from one another by peculiar natures or attributes. Thus the nature of fire was _hot_ and _dry_, that of water _cold_ and _moist_, that of air _cold_ and _dry_, and that of earth _hot_ and _moist_.[47] Chaucer alludes to these distinguishing attributes of the elements a number of times, as, for example, in _Boethius_, III.: Metre 9. 14 ff.:

"Thou bindest the elements by noumbres proporciounables, that the colde thinges mowen acorden with the hote thinges, and the drye thinges with the moiste thinges";

In conclusion it should be said that all creatures occupying the elemental region or realm of imperfection below the moon were thought to have been created not directly by God but by Nature as his "vicaire" or deputy, or, in other words, by an inferior agency. Chaucer alludes to this in _The Parlement of Foules_ briefly thus:

"Nature, the vicaire of thalmyghty lorde, That hoot, cold, hevy, light, (and) moist and dreye Hath knit by even noumbre of acorde,"[48]

and more at length in _The Phisiciens Tale_. Chaucer says of the daughter of Virginius that nature had formed her of such excellence that she might have said of her creation:

"'lo! I, Nature, Thus can I forme and peynte a creature, Whan that me list; who can me countrefete? Pigmalion noght, though he ay forge and bete, Or grave, or peynte; for I dar wel seyn, Apelles, Zanzis, sholde werche in veyn, Outher to grave or peynte or forge or bete, If they presumed me to countrefete. For he that is the former principal Hath maked me his vicaire general, To forme and peynten erthely creaturis Right as me list, and ech thing in my cure is Under the mone, that may wane and waxe, And for my werk right no-thing wol I axe; My lord and I ben ful of oon accord; I made hir to the worship of my lord.'"[49]

What is of especial interest for our purposes is found in the five lines of this passage beginning "For he that is the former principal," etc. "Former principal" means 'creator principal' or the chief creator. God is the chief creator; therefore there must be other or inferior creators. Nature is a creator of inferior rank whom God has made his "vicaire" or deputy and whose work it is to create and preside over all things beneath the sphere of the moon.

IV

CHAUCER'S ASTRONOMY

Chaucer's treatment of astronomical lore in his poetry differs much from his use of it in his prose writings. In poetical allusions to heavenly phenomena, much attention to detail and a pedantic regard for accuracy would be inappropriate. References to astronomy in Chaucer's poetry are, as a rule rather brief, specific but not technical, often purely conventional but always truly poetic. There are, indeed, occasional passages in Chaucer's poetry showing so detailed a knowledge of observational[50] astronomy that they would seem astonishing and, to many people, out of place, in modern poetry. They were not so in Chaucer's time, when the exigencies of practical life demanded of the ordinary man a knowledge of astronomy far surpassing that possessed by most of our contemporaries. Harry Bailly in the _Introduction to the Man of Lawes Tale_ determines the day of the month and hour of the day by making calculations from the observed position of the sun in the sky, and from the length of shadows, although, says Chaucer, "he were not depe expert in lore."[51] Such references to technical details of astronomy as we find in this passage are, however, not common in Chaucer's poetry; in his _Treatise on the Astrolabe_, on the other hand, a professedly scientific work designed to instruct his young son Louis in those elements of astronomy and astrology that were necessary for learning the use of the astrolabe, we have sufficient evidence that he was thoroughly familiar with the technical details of the astronomical science of his day.

In Chaucer's poetry the astronomical references employed are almost wholly of two kinds: references showing the time of day or season of the year at which the events narrated are supposed to take place; and figurative allusions for purposes of illustration or comparison. Figurative uses of astronomy in Chaucer vary from simple similes as in the _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_, where the friar's eyes are compared to twinkling stars[52] to extended allegories like the _Compleynt of Mars_ in which the myth of Venus and Mars is related by describing the motions of the planets Venus and Mars for a certain period during which Venus overtakes Mars, they are in conjunction[53] for a short time, and then Venus because of her greater apparent velocity leaves Mars behind. One of the most magnificent astronomical figures employed by Chaucer is in the _Hous of Fame_. Chaucer looks up into the heavens and sees a great golden eagle near the sun, a sight so splendid that men could never have beheld its equal 'unless the heaven had won another sun:'

"Hit was of golde, and shone so bright, That never saw men such a sighte, But-if the heven hadde y-wonne Al newe of golde another sonne; So shoon the egles fethres brighte, And somwhat dounward gan hit lighte."[54]

Besides mentioning the heavenly bodies in time references and figurative allusions, Chaucer also employs them often in descriptions of day and night, of dawn and twilight, and of the seasons. It is with a poet's joy in the warm spring sun that he writes:

"Bright was the day, and blew the firmament, Phebus of gold his stremes doun hath sent, To gladen every flour with his warmnesse."[55]

and with a poet's delight in the new life and vigor that nature puts forth when spring comes that he writes the lines:

"Forgeten had the erthe his pore estat Of winter, that him naked made and mat, And with his swerd of cold so sore greved; Now hath the atempre sonne al that releved That naked was, and clad hit new agayn."[56]

Chaucer's astronomical allusions, then, except in the _Treatise on the Astrolabe_ and in his translation of _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, in which a philosophical interest in celestial phenomena is displayed, are almost invariably employed with poetic purpose. These poetical allusions to heavenly phenomena, however, together with the more technical and detailed references in Chaucer's prose works give evidence of a rather extensive knowledge of astronomy. With all of the important observed movements of the heavenly bodies he was perfectly familiar and it is rather remarkable how many of these he uses in his poetry without giving one the feeling that he is airing his knowledge.

1. _The Sun_

Of all the heavenly bodies the one most often mentioned and employed for poetic purposes by Chaucer is the sun. Chaucer has many epithets for the sun, but speaks of him perhaps most often in the classical manner as Phebus or Apollo. He is called the "golden tressed Phebus"[57] or the "laurer-crowned Phebus;"[58] and when he makes Mars flee from Venus' palace he is called the "candel of Ielosye."[59] In the following passage Chaucer uses three different epithets for the sun within two lines:

"The dayes honour, and the hevenes ye, The nightes fo, al this clepe I the sonne, Gan westren faste, and dounward for to wrye, As he that hadde his dayes cours y-ronne;"[60]

Sometimes Chaucer gives the sun the various accessories with which classical myth had endowed him--the four swift steeds, the rosy chariot and fiery torches:

"And Phebus with his rosy carte sone Gan after that to dresse him up to fare."[61]

"'now am I war That Pirous and tho swifte stedes three, Which that drawen forth the sonnes char, Hath goon some by-path in despyt of me;'"[62]

"Phebus, that was comen hastely Within the paleys-yates sturdely, With torche in honde, of which the stremes brighte On Venus chambre knokkeden ful lighte."[63]

Almost always when Chaucer wishes to mention the time of day at which the events he is relating take place, he does so by describing the sun's position in the sky or the direction of his motion. We can imagine that Chaucer often smiled as he did this, for he sometimes humorously apologizes for his poetical conceits and conventions by expressing his idea immediately afterwards in perfectly plain terms. Such is the case in the passage already quoted where Chaucer refers to the sun by the epithets "dayes honour," "hevenes ye," and "nightes fo" and then explains them by saying "al this clepe I the sonne;" and in the lines:

"Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For thorisonte hath reft the sonne his light;"

explained by the simple words:

"This is as muche to seye as it was night."[64]

Thus it is that Chaucer's poetic references to the apparent daily motion of the sun about the earth are nearly always simply in the form of allusions to his rising and setting. Canacee in the _Squieres Tale_, (F. 384 ff.) is said to rise at dawn, looking as bright and fresh as the spring sun risen four degrees from the horizon.

"Up ryseth fresshe Canacee hir-selve, As rody and bright as dooth the yonge sonne, That in the Ram[65] is four degrees up-ronne; Noon hyer was he, whan she redy was;"