Part 3

Many of these references to the rising and setting of the sun might be mentioned, if space permitted, simply for their beauty as poetry. One of the most beautiful is the following:

"And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte, That al the orient laugheth of the lighte, And with his stremes dryeth in the greves The silver dropes, hanging on the leves."[66]

When, in the _Canterbury Tales_, the manciple has finished his tale, Chaucer determines the time by observing the position of the sun and by making calculations from the length of his own shadow:

"By that the maunciple hadde his tale al ended, The sonne fro the south lyne was descended So lowe, that he nas nat, to my sighte, Degrees nyne and twenty as in highte. Foure of the clokke it was tho, as I gesse; For eleven foot, or litel more or lesse, My shadwe was at thilke tyme, as there, Of swich feet as my lengthe parted were In six feet equal of porporcioun."[67]

We must not omit mention of the humorous touch with which Chaucer, in the mock heroic tale of _Chanticleer and the Fox_ told by the nun's priest, makes even the rooster determine the time of day by observing the altitude of the sun in the sky:

"Chauntecleer, in al his pryde, His seven wyves walkyng by his syde, Caste up his eyen to the brighte sonne, That in the signe of Taurus hadde y-ronne Twenty degrees and oon, and somewhat more; And knew by kynde, and by noon other lore, That it was pryme, and crew with blisful stevene. 'The sonne,' he sayde, 'is clomben up on hevene Fourty degrees and oon, and more, y-wis.'"[68]

Moreover, this remarkable rooster observed that the sun had passed the twenty-first degree in Taurus, and we are told elsewhere that he knew each ascension of the equinoctial and crew at each; that is, he crew every hour, as 15° of the equinoctial correspond to an hour:

"Wel sikerer was his crowing in his logge, Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge. By nature knew he ech ascencioun[69] Of th' equinoxial in thilke toun; For whan degrees fiftene were ascended, Thanne crew he, that it mighte nat ben amended."[70]

Chaucer announces the approach of evening by describing the position and appearance of the sun more often than any other time of the day. In the _Legend of Good Women_ he speaks of the sun's leaving the south point[71] of his daily course and approaching the west:

"Whan that the sonne out of the south gan weste,"[72]

and again of his westward motion in the lines:

"And whan that hit is eve, I rene blyve, As sone as ever the sonne ginneth weste,"[73]

Elsewhere Chaucer refers to the setting of the sun by saying that he has completed his "ark divine" and may no longer remain on the horizon,[74] or by saying that the 'horizon has bereft the sun of his light.'[75]

Chaucer's references to the daily motion of the sun about the earth are apt to sound to us like purely poetical figures, so accustomed are we to refer to the sun, what we know to be the earth's rotatory motion, by speaking of his apparent daily motion thus figuratively as if it were real. Chaucer's manner of describing the revolution of the heavenly bodies about the earth and his application of poetic epithets to them are figurative, but the motion itself was meant literally and was believed in by the men of his century, because only the geocentric system of astronomy was then known. If Chaucer had been in advance of his century in this respect there would certainly be some hint of the fact in his writings.

References in Chaucer to the sun's yearly motion are in the same sense literal. The apparent motion of the sun along the ecliptic,[76] which we know to be caused by the earth's yearly motion in an elliptical orbit around the sun, was then believed to be an actual movement of the sun carried along by his revolving sphere. Like the references to the sun's daily movements those that mention his yearly motion along the ecliptic are also usually time references. The season of the year is indicated by defining the sun's position among the signs of the zodiac. The Canterbury pilgrims set out on their journey in April when

"the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-ronne."[77]

In describing the month of May, Chaucer does not fail to mention the sun's position in the zodiac:

"In May, that moder is of monthes glade, That fresshe floures, blewe, and whyte, and rede, Ben quike agayn, that winter dede made, And ful of bawme is fletinge every mede; Whan Phebus doth his brighte bemes sprede Right in the whyte Bole, it so bitidde As I shal singe, on Mayes day the thridde,"[78] etc.

The effect of the sun's declination in causing change of seasons[79] is mentioned a number of times in Chaucer's poetry. The poet makes a general reference to the fact in a passage of exquisite beauty from _Troilus and Criseyde_ where he says that the sun has thrice returned to his lofty position in the sky and melted away the snows of winter:

"The golden-tressed Phebus heighe on-lofte Thryes hadde alle with his bemes shene The snowes molte, and Zephirus as ofte Y-brought ayein the tendre leves grene, Sin that the sone of Ecuba the quene Bigan to love hir first, for whom his sorwe Was al, that she departe sholde a-morwe."[80]

More interesting astronomically but of less interest as poetry is his reference to the sun's declination and its effect on the seasons in the _Frankeleyns Tale_, because here Chaucer uses the word 'declination' and states that it is the cause of the seasons. The reference is the beginning of Aurelius' prayer to Apollo, or the sun:

"'Apollo, God and governour Of every plaunte, herbe, tree and flour, That yevest, after thy declinacioun, To ech of hem his tyme and his sesoun, As thyn herberwe chaungeth lowe or hye;'"[81]

Once again in the _Frankeleyns Tale_ Chaucer refers to the sun's declination and the passage of the seasons:

"Phebus wex old, and hewed lyk latoun,[82] That in his hote declinacioun Shoon as the burned gold with stremes brighte; But now in Capricorn adoun he lighte, Wher-as he shoon ful pale, I dar wel seyn."[83]

Chaucer is here contrasting the sun's appearance in summer and winter. In his hot declination (his greatest northward declination in Cancer, about June 21) he shines as burnished gold, but when he reaches Capricornus, his greatest southward declination (about December 21) he appears 'old' and has a dull coppery color, no longer that of brilliant gold.

2. _The Moon_

From those references to the moon that occur in Chaucer's poetry alone, it would be impossible to determine just how much he knew of the peculiarities of her apparent movements; for he alludes to the moon's motion and positions much less frequently and with much less detail than to those of the sun. But a passage in the prologue to the _Astrolabe_ leaves it without doubt that Chaucer was quite familiar with lunar phenomena. In stating what the treatise is to contain, he says of the fourth part: "The whiche ferthe partie in special shal shewen a table of the verray moeving of the mone from houre to houre, every day and in every signe, after thyn almenak; upon which table ther folwith a canon, suffisant to teche as wel the maner of the wyrking of that same conclusioun, as to knowe in oure orizonte with which degree of the zodiac that the mone ariseth in any latitude;"[84] As a matter of fact the treatise as first contemplated by Chaucer was never finished; only the first two parts were written. But Chaucer would scarcely have written thus definitely of his plan for the fourth part of the work unless he had had fairly complete knowledge of the phenomena connected with the moon's movements.

The moon, in Chaucer's imagination, must have occupied rather an insignificant position among the heavenly bodies as far as appealing to his sense of beauty was concerned, for we find in his poetry no descriptions of her appearance that can compare with his descriptions of the sun or even of the stars. He speaks of moonrise in the most general way:

"hit fil, upon a night, When that the mone up-reysed had her light, This noble quene un-to her reste wente;"[85]

He applies to her only a few epithets, the most eulogistic of which is "Lucina the shene."[86] In comparing the sun with the other heavenly bodies the poet mentions the moon among the rest without distinction, as inferior to the sun:

"For I dar swere, withoute doute, That as the someres sonne bright Is fairer, clerer, and hath more light Than any planete, (is) in heven, The mone, or the sterres seven, For al the worlde, so had she Surmounted hem alle of beaute," etc.[87]

On the other hand, the stars are elsewhere said to be like small candles in comparison with the moon:

"And cleer as (is) the mone-light, Ageyn whom alle the sterres semen But smale candels, as we demen."[88]

Whenever Chaucer mentions the moon's position in the heavens he does so by reference to the signs of the zodiac[89] and, as in the case of the sun, usually with the purpose of showing time. In the _Marchantes Tale_ he expresses the passage of four days thus:

"The mone that, at noon, was, thilke day That Ianuarie hath wedded fresshe May, In two of Taur, was in-to Cancre gliden; So long hath Maius in hir chambre biden,"[90]

and a few lines further on he states the fact explicitly:

"The fourthe day compleet fro noon to noon, Whan that the heighe masse was y-doon, In halle sit this Ianuarie, and May As fresh as is the brighte someres day."[91]

When Criseyde leaves Troilus to go to the Greek army she promises to return to Troy within the time that it will take the moon to pass from Aries through Leo, that is, within ten days:

"'And trusteth this, that certes, herte swete, Er Phebus suster, Lucina the shene, The Leoun passe out of this Ariete, I wol ben here, with-outen any wene. I mene, as helpe me Iuno, hevenes quene, The tenthe day, but-if that deeth me assayle, I wol yow seen, with-outen any fayle.'"[92]

But while the moon is quickly traversing the part of her course from Aries to Leo, Criseyde, pressed by Diomede, is changing her mind about returning to Troy, and by the appointed tenth day has decided to remain with the Greeks:

"And Cynthea[93] hir char-hors over-raughte To whirle out of the Lyon, if she mighte; And Signifer[94] his candeles shewed brighte, Whan that Criseyde un-to hir bedde wente In-with hir fadres faire brighte tente. . . . . . . . . . . . . and thus bigan to brede The cause why, the sothe for to telle, That she tok fully purpos for to dwelle."[95]

The passage of time is also indicated in Chaucer's poetry by reference to the recurrence of the moon's phases. In the _Legend of Good Women_, Phillis writes to the false Demophon saying that the moon has passed through its phases four times since he went away and thrice since the time he promised to return:

"'Your anker, which ye in our haven leyde, Highte us, that ye wolde comen, out of doute, Or that the mone ones wente aboute. But tymes foure the mone hath hid her face Sin thilke day ye wente fro this place, And foure tymes light the world again.'"[96]

Chaucer refers more often to the phases of the moon than to any other lunar phenomenon, but most of these references to her phases are used for the sake of comparison or illustration and give us little idea of the extent of Chaucer's knowledge. Mars in his 'compleynt' says that the lover

"Hath ofter wo then changed is the mone."[97]

The rumors in the house of fame are given times of waxing and waning like the moon:

"Thus out at holes gonne wringe Every tyding streight to Fame; And she gan yeven eche his name, After hir disposicioun, And yaf hem eek duracioun, Some to wexe and wane sone, As dooth the faire whyte mone, And leet hem gon."[98]

Chaucer briefly describes the crescent moon by calling her

"The bente mone with hir hornes pale."[99]

In Troilus' prayer to the moon, the line

"'I saugh thyn hornes olde eek by the morwe,'"[100]

is practically the only one in which Chaucer gives any hint of the times at which the moon in her various phases may be seen. The phase of the 'new moon,' when the moon is in conjunction with the sun (i. e., between the earth and the sun, so that we cannot see the illuminated hemisphere of the moon) is mentioned in the same poem:

"Right sone upon the chaunging of the mone, Whan lightles is the world a night or tweyne."[101]

There is a very definite description of three of the moon's phases in the following passage from _Boethius_:[102] "so that the mone som-tyme shyning with hir ful hornes, meting with alle the bemes of the sonne hir brother, hydeth the sterres that ben lesse; and som-tyme, whan the mone, pale with hir derke hornes, approcheth the sonne, leseth hir lightes;" The moon 'shining with her full horns' means with her horns filled up as at full moon when she is in a position opposite both earth and sun so that she reflects upon the earth all the rays of the sun. The moon "with derke hornes" refers of course to the waning moon, a thin crescent near the sun and almost obscured in his light, which approaching nearer the sun is entirely lost to our view in his rays and becomes the new moon.

Chaucer's most interesting references to the moon are found in the prayer of Aurelius to the sun in the _Frankeleyns Tale_. Dorigen has jestingly promised to have pity on Aurelius as soon as he shall remove all the rocks from along the coast of Brittany, and Aurelius prays to the sun, or Apollo, to help him by enlisting the aid of the moon, in accomplishing this feat. The sun's sister, Lucina, or the moon, is chief goddess of the sea; just as she desires to follow the sun and be quickened and illuminated by him, so the sea desires to follow her:

"'Your blisful suster, Lucina the shene, That of the see is chief goddesse and quene, Though Neptunus have deitee in the see, Yet emperesse aboven him is she: Ye knowen wel, lord, that right as hir desyr Is to be quiked and lightned of your fyr, For which she folweth yow ful bisily, Right so the see desyreth naturelly To folwen hir, as she that is goddesse Bothe in the see and riveres more and lesse.'"[103]

In calling Lucina chief goddess of the sea and speaking of the sea's desire to follow her, Chaucer is, of course alluding to the moon's effect upon the tides; and in the line:

"'Is to be quiked and lightned of your fyr,'"

the reference is to the fact that the moon derives her light from the sun.

Instead of leaving it to the sun-god to find a way of removing the rocks for him, Aurelius proceeds to give explicit instructions as to how this may be accomplished. As the highest tides occur when the moon is in opposition or in conjunction with the sun, if the moon could only be kept in either of these positions with regard to the sun for a long enough time, so great a flood would be produced, Aurelius thinks, that the rocks would be washed away. So he prays Phebus to induce the moon to slacken her speed at her next opposition in Leo and for two years to traverse her sphere with the same (apparent) velocity as that of the sun, thus remaining in opposition with him:

"'Wherfore, lord Phebus, this is my requeste-- Do this miracle, or do myn herte breste-- That now, next at this opposicioun, Which in the signe shal be of the Leoun, As preyeth hir so greet a flood to bringe, That fyve fadme at the leeste it overspringe The hyeste rokke in Armorik Briteyne; And lat this flood endure yeres tweyne; . . . . . . . . . Preye hir she go no faster cours than ye, I seye, preyeth your suster that she go No faster cours than ye thise yeres two. Than shal she been evene atte fulle alway, And spring-flood laste bothe night and day.'"[104]

References to eclipses of the moon occur seldom in Chaucer. In the second part of the _Romaunt of the Rose_, which is included in complete editions of Chaucer's works but which he almost certainly did not write, there is a description of a lunar eclipse and of its causes. Fickleness in love is compared to an eclipse:

"For it shal chaungen wonder sone, And take eclips right as the mone, Whan she is from us (y)-let Thurgh erthe, that bitwixe is set The sonne and hir, as it may falle, Be it in party, or in alle; The shadowe maketh her bemis merke, And hir hornes to shewe derke, That part where she hath lost hir lyght Of Phebus fully, and the sight; Til, whan the shadowe is overpast, She is enlumined ageyn as faste, Thurgh brightnesse of the sonne bemes That yeveth to hir ageyn hir lemes."[105]

This passage is so clear that it needs no explanation.

An eclipse of the moon, since it is caused by the passing of the moon into the shadow of the earth, can only take place when the moon is full, that is, in _opposition_ to the sun. This fact is suggested in a reference in _Boethius_ to a lunar eclipse:

"the hornes of the fulle mone wexen pale and infect by the boundes of the derke night;"[106]

In the next lines Chaucer mentions the fact that the stars which are lost to sight in the bright rays of the full moon become visible during an eclipse:

"and ... the mone, derk and confuse, discovereth the sterres that she hadde y-covered by hir clere visage."[107]

3. _The Planets_

All the planets that are easily visible to the unaided eye were known in Chaucer's time and are mentioned in his writings, some of them many times. These planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. According to the Ptolemaic system, which as we have seen, held sway in the world of learning during Chaucer's century, the sun and moon were also held to be planets, and all were supposed to revolve around the earth in concentric rings, the moon being nearest the earth, and the sun between Venus and Mars. The circular orbit of each planet was called its "deferent" and upon the deferent moved, not the planet itself, but an imaginary planet, represented by a point. The real planet moved upon a smaller circle called the "epicycle" whose center was the moving point representing the imaginary planet. The deferent of each planet was supposed to be traced as a great circle upon a transparent separate crystal sphere; and all of the crystal spheres revolved once a day around an axis passing through the poles of the heavens. As the sun and moon did not show the same irregularities[108] of motion as the planets, Ptolemy supposed these two bodies to have deferents but no epicycles. Later investigators complicated the system by adding further secondary imaginary planets, revolving in Ptolemy's epicycles and with the actual planets attached to additional corresponding epicycles. They even supposed the moon to have one, perhaps two epicycles and we shall find this notion reflected in Chaucer. The eighth sphere had neither deferent nor epicycle but to it were attached the fixed stars. This sphere as we have seen earlier, revolved slowly from west to east to account for the precession of the equinoxes, while a ninth sphere, the _primum mobile_, imparted to all the inner spheres their diurnal motion from east to west.

Chaucer's poetical references to the planets, as we have found to be true in the case of the sun and moon, do not give us satisfactory evidence of the extent of his knowledge, but occasional passages from his prose works again throw light on these allusions. Chaucer refers to the planets in general as 'the seven stars,' as, for instance, in the lines:

"And with hir heed she touched hevene, Ther as shynen sterres sevene."[109]

and

"To have mo floures, swiche seven As in the welken sterres be."[110]

Chaucer was undoubtedly familiar with the irregularities of the planetary movements, and with the theory of epicycles by which these irregular movements were in his day explained, although it is not from his poetry that we can learn the fact. He uses the word 'epicycle' only once in all his works. In the _Astrolabe_ when comparing the moon's motion with that of the other planets, he says: "for sothly, the mone moeveth the contrarie from othere planetes as in hir episicle, but in non other manere."[111]

In the _Astrolabe_[112] Chaucer explains a method of determining whether a planet's motion is retrograde or direct.[113] The altitude of the planet and of any fixed star, is taken, and several nights later at the time when the fixed star has the same altitude as at the previous observation, the planet's altitude is again observed. If the planet is on the right or east side of the meridian, and its second altitude is less than its first, then the planet's motion is direct. If the planet is on the left or west side of the meridian, and has a smaller altitude at the second observation than at the first, then the planet's motion is retrograde. If the planet is on the east side of the meridional line when its altitude is taken and the second altitude is greater than the first, it is retrograde; and if it is on the west side and its second altitude is greater, it is direct. This method would be correct were it not that a change in the planet's declination or angular distance from the celestial equator might render the conclusions incorrect.

Chaucer mentions the irregularity of planetary movements in _Boethius_ also when he says: "and whiche sterre in hevene useth wandering recourses, y-flit by dyverse speres."[114] The expression "y-flit by dyverse speres" may have reference only to the one motion of the planets, that is, their motion concentric to the star-sphere; or it may be used to include also their epicyclic motion. Skeat interprets the expression in the former way; but the context, it seems, would justify interpreting the words "dyverse speres" as meaning the various spheres of the planets to-gether with their epicycles; i. e., both deferents and epicycles.

Of all the planets, that most often mentioned by Chaucer is Venus, partly, no doubt, because of her greater brilliance, but probably in the main because of her greater astrological importance; for few of Chaucer's references to Venus, or to any other planet, indeed, are without astrological significance. Chaucer refers to Venus, in the classical manner, as Hesperus when she appears as evening[115] star and as Lucifer when she is seen as the morning star: "and that the eve-sterre Hesperus, which that in the firste tyme of the night bringeth forth hir colde arysinges, cometh eft ayein hir used cours, and is pale _by the morwe_ at the rysing of the sonne, and is thanne cleped Lucifer."[116] Her appearance as morning star is again mentioned in the same work: "and after that Lucifer the day-sterre hath chased awey the derke night, the day the fairere ledeth the rosene hors _of the sonne_,"[117] and in _Troilus and Criseyde_ where it is said that

"Lucifer, the dayes messager, Gan for to ryse, and out hir bemes throwe;"[118]

Elsewhere in the same poem her appearance as evening star is mentioned but she is not this time called Hesperus:

"The brighte Venus folwede and ay taughte The wey, ther brode Phebus doun alighte;"[119]

Occasionally Venus is called Cytherea, from the island near which Greek myth represented her as having arisen from the sea. Thus in the _Knightes Tale_:

"He roos, to wenden on his pilgrimage Un-to the blisful Citherea benigne, I mene Venus, honurable and digne."[120]

and in the _Parlement of Foules_;

"Citherea! thou blisful lady swete,"[121]