Astronomical Lore in Chaucer Part 2

"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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.seth 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 felaws.h.i.+peth the wey of the olde colde Saturnus.'"[44]

In this pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sen 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.al 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 wors.h.i.+p of my lord.'"[49]

What is of especial interest for our purposes is found in the five lines of this pa.s.sage beginning "For he that is the former princ.i.p.al," etc.

"Former princ.i.p.al" means 'creator princ.i.p.al' or the chief creator. G.o.d is the chief creator; therefore there must be other or inferior creators.

Nature is a creator of inferior rank whom G.o.d 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 pa.s.sages in Chaucer's poetry showing so detailed a knowledge of observational[50] astronomy that they would seem astonis.h.i.+ng 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 surpa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.sical 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 st.u.r.dely, 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 pa.s.sage 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;"

Many of these references to the rising and setting of the sun might be mentioned, if s.p.a.ce 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]