Astronomical Lore in Chaucer Part 10

TRAILL, H. D., _Social England_. New York and London. 1902.

WALLACE, A. R., _Man's Place in the Universe_. London. 1903.

WHITE, A. D., _Warfare of Science with Theology_. New York and London.

1909. I. 381.

CHAUCER, _The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer_. W. W. Skeat, edit.

Clarendon Press. 1894.

CHAUCER, _Treatise on the Astrolabe_, A. E. Brae, edit. London. 1870.

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R. Waller. Vol. II. 1908.

TEN BRINK, BERNARD, _History of English Literature_. Vol. II. New York.

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COURTHOPE, W. J., _Literary History of the English People_. Vol. I. New York. 1898.

HADOW, GRACE E., _Chaucer and His Times_. New York. 1914.

HAMMOND, ELEANOR P., _Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual_. New York. 1908.

JUSSERAND, J. J., _History of English Poetry_. Vol. II. London. 1895.

KITTREDGE, G. L., _Chaucer and His Poetry_. Harvard University Press.

1915.

LEGOUIS, EMILE, _Geoffrey Chaucer_. Trans. by L. Lailavoix. London. 1913.

LOUNSBURY, T. R., _Studies in Chaucer_. New York. 1892.

MORLEY, HENRY, _English Writers_. Vol. V. London. 1887 ff.

ROOT, ROBERT K., _The Poetry of Chaucer_. Boston and New York. 1906.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The name of Ptolemy occurs once in _The Somnours Tale_ (D. 2289):

"As wel as Euclide or (as) Ptholomee."

and once in _The Astrolabe_, I. 17.6:

"whiche declinacioun, aftur Ptholome, is 23 degrees and 50 minutes, as wel in Cancer as in Capricorne."

The _Almagest_ is mentioned in _The Milleres Tale_ (A.3208):

"His Almageste and bokes grete and smale,"

Twice in _The Wif of Bathes Prologue_ occur both the name of the _Almagest_ and that of its author:

"'Who-so that nil be war by othere men, By him shul othere men corrected be.

The same wordes wryteth Ptholomee; Rede in his Almageste, and take it there.'"

(D. 180-183)

"Of alle men y-blessed moot he be, The wyse astrologien Dan Ptholome, That seith this proverbe in his Almageste, 'Of alle men his wisdom is the hyeste, That rekketh never who hath the world in honde.'"

(D. 323-327)

Professor Lounsbury (_Studies in Chaucer_, ii p. 186 and pp. 396-7) has difficulty in explaining why Chaucer makes the Wife of Bath attribute these moral maxims to Ptolemy. He is inclined to think that Chaucer, so to speak, was napping when he put these utterances into the mouth of the Wife of Bath; yet elsewhere he acknowledges that the supposition of confused memory on Chaucer's part in this case is hard to reconcile with the knowledge he elsewhere displays of Ptolemy's work. I think it very probable that Chaucer's seeming slip here is deliberate art. The Wife of Bath is one of Chaucer's most humorous creations and the blunders he here attributes to her are quite in keeping with her character. From her fifth husband, who was a professional scholar and a wide reader, she has picked up a store of scattered and incomplete information about books and names, and she loses no opportunity for displaying it. At any rate, whether or not Chaucer had read the _Almagest_ in translation, his many cosmological and astronomical references show clearly his acquaintance with the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

[2] An Arabian scholar of the eighth century.

[3] 1.18 ff. "This tretis, divided in fyve parties, wole I shewe thee under ful lighte rewles and naked wordes in English; for Latin ne canstow yit but smal, my lyte sone."

[4] "And Lowis, yif so be that I shewe thee in my lighte English as trewe conclusiouns touching this matere, and naught only as trewe but as many and as subtil conclusiouns as ben shewed in Latin in any commune tretis of the Astrolabie, con me the more thank;" _Prologue to the Astrolabe_, 35-39.

[5] Skeat, _Notes on the Astrolabe, Prologue_, 62. "Warton says that 'John Some and Nicholas Lynne' were both Carmelite friars, and wrote calendars constructed for the meridian of Oxford. He adds that Nicholas Lynne is said to have made several voyages to the most northerly parts of the world, charts of which he presented to Edward III. These charts are, however, lost."

[6] _The Astrolabe_, I. 8.9. According to Warton the work in question is an introduction to judicial astronomy. (Lounsbury, II. 398.)

[7] F. 1273. "His tables Toletanes forth he broght."

[8] _Englische Studien_ III 209. See also J. S. P. Tatlock, "Chaucer and Dante," in _Modern Philology_, III, 367. 1905.

[9] _Parlement of Foules_, 57-59.

[10] _Compleynt of Mars_, 29.

[11] _Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan_, 8-12.

"By worde eterne whylom was. .h.i.t shape That fro the fifte cercle, in no manere, Ne mighte a drope of teres doun escape.

But now so wepeth Venus in hir spere, That with hir teres she wol drenche us here."

[12] Since Chaucer calls Mars the lord of the third heaven and elsewhere speaks of Venus as presiding over that sphere it is evident that he sometimes reckons from the earth outwards, and sometimes from the outer sphere of Saturn towards the earth. The regular order of the planets, counting from the earth, was supposed to be as follows: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, making Mars the third from the last.

[13] III. 1-2.

[14]