More interesting astronomically but of less interest as poetry is his reference to the sun’s declination and its effect on the seasons in theFrankeleyns 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 governourOf 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 theFrankeleyns TaleChaucer refers to the sun’s declination and the passage of the seasons:
“Phebus wex old, and hewed lyk latoun,[82]That in his hote declinaciounShoon 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 theAstrolabeleaves 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 brightIs fairer, clerer, and hath more lightThan any planete, (is) in heven,The mone, or the sterres seven,For al the worlde, so had sheSurmounted 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 semenBut 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 theMarchantes Talehe expresses the passage of four days thus:
“The mone that, at noon, was, thilke dayThat 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 MayAs 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-raughteTo whirle out of the Lyon, if she mighte;And Signifer[94]his candeles shewed brighte,Whan that Criseyde un-to hir bedde wenteIn-with hir fadres faire brighte tente.................and thus bigan to bredeThe 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 theLegend of Good Women, Phillis writes to the falseDemophon 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 faceSin 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 wringeEvery 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 inconjunction 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 fromBoethius:[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 theFrankeleyns 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 desyrIs to be quiked and lightned of your fyr,For which she folweth yow ful bisily,Right so the see desyreth naturellyTo folwen hir, as she that is goddesseBothe 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 overspringeThe 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 goNo 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 theRomaunt 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)-letThurgh erthe, that bitwixe is setThe 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 lyghtOf Phebus fully, and the sight;Til, whan the shadowe is overpast,She is enlumined ageyn as faste,Thurgh brightnesse of the sonne bemesThat 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, inoppositionto the sun. This fact is suggested in a reference inBoethiusto 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 inChaucer. 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, theprimum 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 sevenAs 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 theAstrolabewhen 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 theAstrolabe[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 inBoethiusalso 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 theeve-sterre Hesperus, which that in the firste tyme of the night bringeth forth hir colde arysinges, cometh eft ayein hir used cours, and is paleby the morweat 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 horsof the sonne,”[117]and inTroilus and Criseydewhere 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 taughteThe 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 theKnightes Tale:
“He roos, to wenden on his pilgrimageUn-to the blisful Citherea benigne,I mene Venus, honurable and digne.”[120]
and in theParlement of Foules;
“Citherea! thou blisful lady swete,”[121]
The relative positions of the different planets in the heavens is suggested by allusions to the different sizes of their spheres and to their different velocities. In theCompleynt of Marsthe comparative sizes and velocities of the spheres of Mercury, Venus and Mars are made the basis for most of the action of the poem. The greater the sphere or orbit of a planet, the slower is its apparent motion. Thus Mars in his large sphere moves about half as fast as Venus and in the poem it is planned that when Mars reaches thenext palace[122]of Venus, he shall by virtue of his slower motion, wait for her to overtake him:
“That Mars shal entre, as faste as he may glyde,Into hir nexte paleys, to abyde,Walking his cours til she had him a-take,And he preyde hir to haste hir for his sake.”[123]
Venus in compassion for his solitude hastens to overtake her knight:
“She hath so gret compassion of hir knight,That dwelleth in solitude til she come;...........Wherefore she spedde hir as faste in her weye,Almost in oon day, as he dide in tweye.”[124]
When Phebus comes into the palace with his fiery torch, Mars will not flee and cannot hide, so he girds himself with sword and armour and bids Venus flee. Phebus, who in Chaucer’s time was regarded as the fourth planet, can overtake Mars but not Venus because his sphere is between theirs and his motion is consequently slower than that of Venus but faster than that of Mars:
“Flee wolde he not, ne mighte him-selven hyde.He throweth on his helm of huge wighte,And girt him with his swerde; and in his hondeHis mighty spere, as he was wont to fighte,He shaketh so that almost it to-wonde;Ful hevy he was to walken over londe;He may not holde with Venus companye,But bad hir fleen, lest Phebus hir espye.“O woful Mars! alas! what mayst thou seyn,That in the paleys of thy disturbaunceArt left behinde, in peril to be sleyn?...........That thou nere swift, wel mayst thou wepe and cryen.”[125]
In spite of his sorrow, Mars patiently continues to follow Venus, lamenting as he goes that his sphere is so large:
“He passeth but oo steyre in dayes two,But ner the les, for al his hevy armure,He foloweth hir that is his lyves cure;[126].........After he walketh softely a pas,Compleyning, that hit pite was to here.He seyde, ‘O lady bright, Venus! alas!That ever so wyde a compass is my spere!Alas! whan shal I mete yow, herte dere,’” etc.[127]
Meanwhile Venus has passed on to Mercury’s palace where he soon overtakes her and receives her as his friend:[128]
“hit happed for to be,That, whyl that Venus weping made hir mone,Cylenius, ryding in his chevauche,Fro Venus valance mighte his paleys see,And Venus he salueth, and maketh chere,And hir receyveth as his frend ful dere.”[129]
Mercury’s palace was the sign Gemini and Venus’ valance, probably meaning her detrimentum or the sign opposite her palace, was Aries. ‘Chevauche’ means an equestrian journey or ride, and is here used in the sense of ‘swift course.’ The passage, then, simply refers to the swift motion by which in a very short time Mercury passes from Aries to a position near enough to that of Venus in Gemini so that he can see her and give her welcome. Mercury’ssphere being the smallest of the planets, his motion is also the swiftest.
The size of Jupiter’s orbit is not mentioned in Chaucer and that of Saturn’s only once. In theKnightes TaleSaturn, addressing Venus, speaks of the great distance that he traverses with his revolving sphere but does not compare the size of his sphere with those of the other planets:
“‘My dere doghter Venus,’ quod Saturne,‘My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne,Hath more power than wot any man.’”[130]
Besides the reference in theCompleynt of Marsto the conjunction of Venus and Mars[131], there are occasional references in Chaucer to conjunctions of other planets. In theAstrolabe[132]Chaucer explains a method of determining in what position in the heavens a conjunction of the sun and moon takes place, when the time of the conjunction is known. A conjunction of the moon with Saturn and Jupiter is mentioned inTroilus and Criseyde, in the lines:
“The bente mone with hir hornes pale,Saturne, and Iove, in Cancro ioyned were,”[133]
4.The Galaxy
The Galaxy or Milky Way, which stretches across the heavens like a broad band whitish in color caused by closely crowded stars, has appealed to men’s imagination since very early times. Its resemblance to a road or street has been suggested in the names given to it by many peoples. Ovid called itvia lacteaand the Roman peasants,strada di Roma; pilgrims to Spain referred to it as theroad to Santiago; Dante refers to it as “the white circle commonlycalled St. Janus’s Way”[134]; and the English had two names for it,Walsingham wayandWatling-street.
Chaucer twice mentions the Galaxy; once in theParlement of Foules, where Africanus shows Scipio the location of heaven by pointing to the Galaxy:
“And rightful folk shal go, after they dye,To heven; and shewed him the galaxye.”[135]
In theHous of Fame, the golden eagle who bears Chaucer through the heavens toward Fame’s palace, points out to him the Galaxy and then relates the myth of Phaeton driving the chariot of the sun, a story traditionally associated with the Milky Way:
‘Now,’ quod he tho, ‘cast up thyn ye;See yonder, lo, the Galaxye,Which men clepeth the Milky Wey,For hit is whyt: and somme, parfey,Callen hit Watlinge Strete:That ones was y-brent with hete,Whan the sonnes sone, the rede,That highte Pheton, wolde ledeAlgate his fader cart, and gye.The cart-hors gonne wel espyeThat he ne coude no governaunce,And gonne for to lepe and launce,And beren him now up, now doun,Til that he saw the Scorpioun,Which that in heven a signe is yit.And he, for ferde, loste his wit,Of that, and lest the reynes goonOf his hors; and they anoonGonne up to mounte, and doun descendeTil bothe the eyr and erthe brende;Til Iupiter, lo, atte laste,Him slow, and fro the carte caste.’[136]
In narrating this story here, Chaucer may have beenimitating Dante who refers to the myth in theDivine Comedy:
“What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched,”[137]
and states its source and the use made of it by some philosophers in theConvivio:
“For the Pythagoreans affirmed that the sun at one time wandered in its course, and in passing through other regions not suited to sustain its heat, set on fire the place through which it passed; and so these traces of the conflagration remain there. And I believe that they were influenced by the fable of Phaeton, which Ovid tells at the beginning of the second book of theMetamorphoses.”[138]
Astrological Lore in Chaucer
Astrology, though resembling a science in that it makes use of observation and seeks to establish laws governing its data, is in reality a faith or creed. It had its beginning, so tradition tells us, in the faith of the ancient Babylonians in certain astral deities who exerted an influence upon terrestrial events and human life. The basis of this faith was not altogether illogical but contained a germ of truth.
Of all the heavenly bodies, the sun exerted the most obvious effect upon the earth; the sun brought day and night, summer and winter; his rays lured growing things from mother earth and so gave sustenance to mankind. But to the ancient peoples of the Orient the sun was also often a baneful power; he could destroy as well as give life. Therefore, the ancients came to look upon the sun as a great and powerful god to be worshipped and propitiated by men. And if the sun was such a power, it was natural to believe that all the other bright orbs of the sky were lesserdivinities who exercised more limited powers on the earth. From this beginning, based, as we have seen, on a germ of fact, by the power of his imagination and credulity, man extended more and more the powers of these sidereal divinities, attributing to their volition and influence all the most insignificant as well as the most important terrestrial events. And if the heavenly bodies, by revolving about the earth in ceaseless harmony, effected the recurrence of day and night and of the seasons, and if their configurations were responsible for the minutest events in nature, was it not natural to suppose that, besides affecting man thus indirectly, they also influenced him directly and were responsible for his conduct and for the very qualities of his mind and soul? Perhaps the astonishing variety of the influences that the celestial bodies, from ancient until modern times, were supposed to exercise over the world and the life of mankind can be accounted for by imagining some such process of thought to have been involved in the beginnings of astrology.
It was but a step from faith in stellar influence on our earth to the belief that, as the heavenly movements were governed by immutable laws, so their influence upon the world would follow certain laws and its effects in the future could be determined as certainly as could the coming revolutions and conjunctions of the stars. Out of this two-fold belief was evolved a complex system of divination, the origin of which was forgotten as men, believing in it, invented reasons for believing, pretending that their faith was founded on a long series of observations. The Chaldeans believed that in discovering the unceasing regularity of the celestial motions, they had found the very laws of life and they built upon this conviction a mass of absolutely rigid dogmas. But when experience belied these dogmas, unable to realize the falsity of their presuppositions and to give up their faith in the divine stars, the astrologers invented new dogmas to explain the old ones, thus piling up a body of complicated and oftencontradictory doctrines that will ever be to the student a source of perplexity and astonishment.
On its philosophical side astrology was a system of astral theology developed, not by popular thought, but through the careful observations and speculations of learned priests and scholars. It was a purely Eastern science which came into being on the Chaldean plains and in the Nile valley. As far as we know, it was entirely unknown to any of the primitive Aryan races, from Hindostan to Scandinavia. Astrology as a system of divination never gained a foothold in Greece during the brightest period of her intellectual life. But the dogma of astral divinity was zealously maintained by the greatest of Greek philosophers. Plato, the great idealist, whose influence upon the theology of the ancient and even of the modern world was more profound than that of any other thinker, called the stars “visible gods” ranking them just below the supreme eternal Being; and to Plato these celestial gods were infinitely superior to the anthropomorphic gods of the popular religion, who resembled men in their passions and were superior to them only in beauty of form and in power. Aristotle defended with no less zeal the doctrine of the divinity of the stars, seeing in them eternal substances, principles of movement, and therefore divine beings. In the Hellenistic period, Zeno, the Stoic, and his followers proclaimed the supremacy of the sidereal divinities even more strongly than the schools of Plato and Aristotle had done. The Stoics conceived the world as a great organism whose “sympathetic” forces constantly interacted upon one another, governed by Reason which was of the essence of ethereal Fire, the primordial substance of the universe. To the stars, the purest manifestation of the power of this ethereal substance, were attributed the greatest influence and the loftiest divine qualities. The Stoics developed the doctrine of fatalism, which is the inevitable outcome of faith in stellar influence on human life, to its consequences; yet they proved by facts that fatalism is not incompatible withactive and virtuous living. By the end of the Roman imperial period astrology had transformed paganism, replacing the old society of Immortals who were scarcely superior to mortals, except in being exempted from old age and death, by faith in the eternal beings who ran their course in perfect harmony throughout the ages, whose power, regulated by the unvarying celestial motions, extended over all the earth and determined the destiny of the whole human race.
Astrology, as a science and a system of divination, exerted a profound influence over the mediaeval mind. No court was without its practicing astrologer and the universities all had their professors of astrology. The practice of astrology was an essential part of the physician’s profession, and before prescribing for a patient it was thought quite as important to determine the positions of the planets as the nature of the disease.[139]Interesting evidence of this fact is found in thePrologue to the Canterbury Taleswhere Chaucer speaks of the Doctour’s knowledge and use of astrology as if it were his chief excellence as a physician:
“In al this world ne was ther noon him lykTo speke of phisik and of surgerye;For he was grounded in astronomye.He kepte his pacient a ful greet delIn houres, by his magik naturel.Wel coude he fortunen the ascendentOf his images for his pacient.”[140]
Yet in spite of the esteem in which astrological divination was held by most people in the Middle Ages, Dante, the greatest exponent of the thought and learning of that period, shows practically no knowledge of the technical and practical side of astrology. When he refers to the specific effects of the planets it is only to those most familiarly known, and he nowhere uses such technical terms as “houses” or “aspects” of planets. But Dante, like the great philosophers of the earlier periods, was undoubtedlyinfluenced by the philosophical doctrines of astrology, and a general belief in the influence of the celestial spheres upon human life was deeply rooted in his mind. To him the ceaseless and harmonious movements of the celestial bodies were the manifestations and instruments of God’s providence, and were ordained by the First Mover to govern the destinies of the earth and human life.
We can see this conviction of Dante’s with perfect certainty when we read theDivina Commedia. For Dante’s poetry is highly subjective; on every page his own personal thoughts and feelings are revealed quite openly. Chaucer’s poetry, on the other hand, is objective; he tells us almost nothing directly about himself and what we learn of him in his writings is almost entirely by inference. Chaucer’s frequent use of astrology in his poetry would make it hard to believe that he was not considerably influenced by its philosophical aspects, at least in the general way that Dante was. Part and parcel of the dramatic action in most of his poems is the idea of stellar influences. Yet we cannot assert, with the same assurance that we can say it of Dante, that Chaucer believed, even in a general way, in the influence of the stars on human life. In Dante’s poetry, as we have said, the poet himself is always before us. Chaucer, with Socratic irony, always makes it plain to the reader that his attitude is purely objective, that he is only the narrator of what he has seen or dreamed, only the copyist of another’s story. Even when Chaucer makes himself one of the protagonists, as in theHous of Fameand theCanterbury Tales, it is only that his narrative may be the more convincing. He tells a story and makes its protagonists actually live before us, as individual men and women. It is possible to imagine all of his use of astrology in his poetry not as the reflection of his own faith in its cosmic philosophy, but the expression of his genius for understanding people and truthfully describing life and character.
Considerable discussion as to Chaucer’s attitude towards astrology has been called forth by passages in whichhe speaks in words of scorn with regard to some of the practices and magic arts that were often used in connection with astrology. In theAstrolabeafter describing somewhat at length the favorable and unfavorable positions of planets he says:
“Natheles, thise ben observauncez of iudicial matiere and rytes of payens, in which my spirit ne hath no feith, ne no knowing of hir horoscopum.”[141]
Again in theFranklin’s Talehe speaks in a similar disdainful tone of astrological magic:
“He him remembred that, upon a day,At Orliens in studie a book he sayOf magik naturel, which his felawe,That was that tyme a bacheler of lawe,Al were he ther to lerne another craft,Had prively upon his desk y-laft;Which book spak muchel of the operaciouns,Touchinge the eighte and twenty mansiounsThat longen to the mone, and swich folye,As in our dayes is not worth a flye:For holy chirches feith in our bileveNe suffreth noon illusion us to greve.”[142]
And elsewhere in the same tale he writes:
“So atte laste he hath his tyme y-foundeTo maken his Iapes and his wreccednesseOf switch a supersticious cursednesse.”[143]
Here follows a long description of the clerk’s instruments and astrological observances, ending in the lines
“For swiche illusiouns and swiche meschauncesAs hethen folk used in thilke dayes;For which no lenger maked he delayes,But thurgh his magik, for a wyke or tweye,It seemed that alle the rokkes were aweye.”[144]
On the strength of these passages Professor T. R. Lounsbury[145]holds that Chaucer was far ahead of most of his contemporaries in his attitude toward the superstitious practices connected with the astrology of his day; that his attitude toward judicial astrology was one of total disbelief and scorn; and he even goes so far as to say that Chaucer was guilty of a breach of artistic workmanship in expressing his disbelief so scornfully in a tale in which the very climax of the dramatic action depends upon a feat of astrological magic.
A more satisfactory interpretation of the passages quoted above is advanced by Professor J. S. P. Tatlock,[146]who shows that Chaucer has taken great pains to place the setting of theFranklin’s Talein ancient times and that he, in common with most of the educated men of his day, disapproved of the practices (except sometimes when employed for good purposes as, e. g. in the physician’s profession) and the practicians of judicial astrology in his own day, but thought of the feats and observances of astrological magic as having been possible and efficacious in ancient times. According to this view Chaucer’s attitude was one of disapproval rather than disbelief, and his disapproval was not for the general theory of astrology, but for the shady observances and quackery connected with its application to the problems of life in his time. It is to be noted, further, that wherever Chaucer speaks in the strongest terms against astrological observances he also uses religious language. This fact may point to a wise caution on his part lest his evident interest in astrology, (which was closely associated with magic, and hence, indirectly, with sorcery) might involve him in difficulties with Mother Church; and, as Professor Tatlock has pointed out, there is no reason to suppose that Chaucer’s religious expressions in these passages are insincere.
TheFranklin’s Talefalls in the group of tales called by Professor Kittredge the “Marriage Group,”[147]that in which the Wife of Bath is the most conspicuous figure. The Wife of Bath’s tale had aroused a rather heated controversy among a number of the Canterbury pilgrims on the subject of the respective duties and relations of wives and husbands. If the critics have been right in placing theFranklin’s Talewhere they do, it was Chaucer’s purpose to have the Franklin soothe the ruffled feelings of certain members of the party by telling a tale in which a husband (and wife), a squire, and a clerk, all prove themselves capable of truly generous behavior. If the tale was to accomplish its purpose the clerk must accomplish his magic feat of removing the rocks from the coast of Brittany, and must in the end generously refuse to accept pay from the squire when he learned that the latter had been too magnanimous to profit from his services. By setting the tale in pagan times, Chaucer was able to express the scorn he felt for certain superstitious practices in his own time without debasing one of his chief characters, one of the three rivals in magnanimity, and so spoiling the noble temper of the story and entirely defeating its purpose.
Thus the astrological passages in theFranklin’s Taledo not suggest total disbelief in astrology on Chaucer’s part, and much less do they show him to have been lacking in true artistic sense. Probably his attitude toward astrology was about this: he was very much interested in it, perhaps in much the same way that Dante was, because of the philosophical ideas at the basis of astrology and out of curiosity as to the problems of free will, providence, and so on, that naturally arose from it. For the shady practices and quackery connected with its use in his own day he had nothing but scorn.
But while Chaucer was at one with the educated men of his century in his attitude toward astrology, and with them had a strong distaste for certain aspects of judicialastrology, nevertheless he made wide use of the greater faith of the majority of people of his time in portraying character in his poetry. For men’s ideas and beliefs constitute a very important part of their character, and Chaucer knew this very well. Men believed that whatever happened to them, whether fortunate or unfortunate, could in some way be traced to the influence of the stars, the agents and instruments of destiny. The configuration of the heavens at the moment of one’s birth was considered especially important, since the positions and interrelations of the different celestial bodies at this time could determine the most momentous events of one’s life. Now the nature of the influence exerted by the different stars, especially the planets and zodiacal constellations, varied greatly. Mars and Venus, for instance, bestowed vastly different qualities upon the soul that was coming into being. Moreover, the power exerted by a planet or constellation fluctuated considerably according to its position. Each planet had in the zodiac a position of greatest and a position of least power called its ‘exaltation’ and ‘depression.’ Furthermore, the ‘aspect’ or angular distance of one planet from another altered its influence in various ways. If Mars and Jupiter, for instance, were in trine or sextile aspect the portent was favorable, if in opposition, it was unfavorable.[148]These ideas are frequently expressed in Chaucer, when the characters seek to understand their misfortunes or to justify their conduct by tracing them back to the determinations of the heavens at their birth. When Palamon and Arcite have been thrown into prison the latter pleads with his companion to have patience; this misfortune was fixed upon them at the time of their birth by the disposition of the planets and constellations, and complaining is of no avail:
“‘For Goddes love, tak al in pacienceOur prisoun, for it may non other be;Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee.Som wikke aspect or disposiciounOf Saturne, by sum constellaciounHath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn;So stood the heven whan that we were born;We moste endure it: this is the short and pleyn.’”[149]
In theMan of Lawes Talethe effect of the stars at the time of a man’s nativity is discussed somewhat at length. The Man of Law predicts the fate of the sultan by saying that the destiny written in the stars had perhaps allotted to him death through love:
“Paraventure in thilke large bookWhich that men clepe the heven, y-writen wasWith sterres, whan that he his birthe took,That he for love shulde han his deeth, allas!For in the sterres, clerer than is glas,Is writen, god wot, who-so coude it rede,The deeth of every man, withouten drede.”[150]
Then he mentions the names of various ancient heroes whose death, he says was written in the stars “er they were born:”
“In sterres, many a winter ther-biforn,Was written the deeth of Ector, Achilles,Of Pompey, Iulius, er they were born;The stryf of Thebes; and of Ercules,Of Sampson, Turnus, and of SocratesThe deeth; but mennes wittes been so dulle,That no wight can wel rede it atte fulle.”[151]
When Criseyde learns that she is to be sent to the Greeks in exchange for Antenor she attributes her misfortune to the stars:
“‘Alas!’ quod she, ‘out of this regiounI, woful wrecche and infortuned wight,And born in corsed constellacioun,Mot goon, and thus departen fro my knight;’”[152]
In theLegend of Good Womenwe are told that Hypermnestra was “born to all good things” or qualities, and then the various influences of the particular planets upon her destiny are mentioned:
“The whiche child, of hir nativitee,To alle gode thewes born was she,As lyked to the goddes, or she was born,That of the shefe she sholde be the corn;The Wirdes, that we clepen Destinee,Hath shapen her that she mot nedes bePitouse, sadde, wyse, and trewe as steel;And to this woman hit accordeth weel.For, though that Venus yaf her great beautee,With Jupiter compouned so was sheThat conscience, trouthe, and dreed of shame,And of hir wyfhood for to keep her name,This, thoughte her, was felicitee as here.And rede Mars was, that tyme of the yere,So feble, that his malice is him raft,Repressed hath Venus his cruel craft;What with Venus and other oppressiounOf houses, Mars his venim is adoun,That Ypermistra dar nat handle a knyfIn malice, thogh she sholde lese her lyf.But natheles, as heven gan tho turne,To badde aspectes hath she of Saturne,That made her for to deyen in prisoun,As I shal after make mencioun.”[153]
The purpose of this astrological passage is plainly to show why Hypermnestra was doomed to die in prison. The qualities given her by the planets, as shown by her horoscope, were such that she was unable to violate a wife’s duty and kill her husband in order to save her own life.[154]Venus gave her great beauty and was also influential in repressingthe influence of Mars who would have given her fighting qualities if his influence had been strong. The myth of the amour between Venus and Mars, which Chaucer makes the basis of his poem theCompleynt of Mars, would explain why Venus was able to influence Mars in this way. The feeble influence of Mars at Hypermnestra’s nativity is accounted for also in another way. His influence is feeble because of the time of year and through the “oppressioun of houses” both of which amount to the same thing, namely, a position in the zodiac in which his power is at a minimum.[155]The influence of Jupiter, we are told, was to give Hypermnestra conscience, truth, and wifely loyalty. That of Saturn was evil and the cause of her death in prison.
The specific influences of Saturn are mentioned in detail in theKnightes Tale. Almost all the ills imaginable are attributable to his power:
“‘My dere doghter Venus,’ quod Saturne,‘My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne,Hath more power than wot any man.Myn is the drenching in the see so wan;Myn is the prison in the derke cote;Myn is the strangling and hanging by the throte;The murmure, and the cherles rebelling,The groyning, and the pryvee empoysoning;I do vengeance and pleyn correcciounWhyl I dwelle in the signe of the leoun.Myn is the ruine of the hye halles,The falling of the toures and of the wallesUp-on the mynour or the carpenter.I slow Sampsoun in shaking the piler;And myne be the maladyes colde,The derke tresons, and the castes olde;My loking is the fader of pestilence.’”[156]
In the line,
“Myn is the prison in the derke cote;”
imprisonment is for the second time attributed to Saturn’s influence. In an earlier passage in theKnightes Tale[157], (seep. 59) it is suggested when Palamon and Arcite’s imprisonment is said to be due to ‘some wicked aspect or disposition of Saturn’ at the time of their birth. Later in the story Palamon specifically states that his imprisonment is through Saturn:
“But I mot been in prison thurgh Saturne,”[158]
That Mars and Saturn were generally regarded as planets of evil influence is shown by a passage in theAstrolabe. Chaucer has just explained what the ‘ascendant’, means in astrology. It is that degree of the zodiac that at the given time is seen upon the eastern horizon. Now, Chaucer says, the ascendant may be ‘fortunate or unfortunate,’ thus:
“a fortunat ascendent clepen they whan that no wykkid planete, as Saturne or Mars, or elles the Tail of the Dragoun, is in the house of the assendent, ne that no wikked planets have non aspects of enemite up-on the assendent;”[159]
The Wife of Bath attributes the two principal qualities of her disposition, amorousness and pugnaciousness, to the planets Venus and Mars:
“For certes, I am al VenerienIn felinge, and myn herte is Marcien.Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse,And Mars yaf me my sturdy hardinesse.Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars ther-inne.Allas! allas! that ever love was sinne!I folwed ay myn inclinaciounBy vertu of my constellacioun.”[160]
A little later in herProloguethe Wife contrasts the influences of Mercury and Venus. As a jibe at the Clerk who was in the company of Canterbury pilgrims she has just said that clerks cannot possibly speak well of wives, and that women could tell tales of clerks if they would. She upholds her statement thus: Wives are the children of Venus, clerks, of Mercury, two planets that are ‘in their working full contrarious:’
“The children of Mercurie and of VenusBeen in hir wirking ful contrarious;Mercurie loveth wisdom and science,And Venus loveth ryot and dispence.And, for hir diverse disposicioun,Ech falleth in otheres exaltacioun;And thus, got woot! Mercurie is desolatIn Pisces, wher Venus is exaltat;And Venus falleth ther Mercurie is reysed;Therefore no womman of no clerk is preysed.”[161]
Venus has her exaltation in the sign in which Mercury has his depression. Therefore the two signs have opposite virtues and influences, and the children of one can see little good in the children of the other.
We have seen how the stars were supposed to control human destiny by bestowing certain qualities upon souls at birth. We shall next consider how they were thought toinfluence men more indirectly, through their effects on terrestrial events. Certain positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to one another could cause heavy rains. The clerk in theMilleres Talepredicts a great rain through observation of the moon’s position:
“‘Now John,’ quod Nicholas, ‘I wol nat lye;I have y-founde in myn astrologye,As I have loked in the mone bright,That now, a Monday next, at quarter-night,Shal falle a reyn and that so wilde and wood,That half so greet was never Noes flood.’”[162]
Such predictions as this were, however, by no means always believed in even by uneducated people. In this case, for the purposes of the story, the flood does not take place. The carpenter, John, is taken in because the story requires it, but Nicholas is a quack pure and simple, and of course the Miller who tells the story has no delusions.
InTroilus and Criseydewe are told that the moon’s conjunction with Jupiter and Saturn caused a heavy rain. Pandarus had the day before suspected that there was to be rain from the condition of the moon:
“Right sone upon the chaunging of the mone,Whan lightles is the world a night or tweyne,And that the welken shoop him for to reyne,He streight a-morwe un-to his nece wente;”[163]
and on the next night the rain came:
“The bente mone with hir hornes pale,Saturne, and Iove, in Cancro ioyned were,That swich a rayn from hevene gan avale,That every maner womman that was thereHadde of that smoky reyn a verray fere;”[164]
Perhaps the moon alone in Cancer, which was her mansion, would have caused a rain, and it was the additional presence of Saturn and Jupiter that made it such a heavy downpour.
Chaucer humorously makes use of this astrological superstition that the planets cause rains in theLenvoy a Scogan:
“To-broken been the statuts hye in heveneThat creat were eternally to dure,Sith that I see the brighte goddes seveneMow wepe and wayle, and passioun endure,As may in erthe a mortal creature.Allas, fro whennes may this thing procede?Of whiche errour I deye almost for drede.”[165]
Here it is not the planets’ positions that cause the rain, but the planets are weeping as mortals do and their tears are the rain. In the next stanza we learn that even Venus, from whose sphere divine law once decreed no tear should ever fall, is weeping so that mortals are about to be drenched. And it is all Scogan’s fault!
“By worde eterne whylom was hit shapeThat 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.Allas! Scogan! this is for thyn offence!Thou causest this deluge of pestilence.”[166]
So the ultimate cause of the rain was Scogan’s offense. And in the next stanza we learn what that offence was. Instead of vowing to serve his lady forever, though his love is unrequited, Scogan has rebelled against the law of love:
“Hast thou not seyd, in blaspheme of this goddes,Through pryde, or through thy grete rakelnesse,Swich thing as in the lawe of love forbode is?That, for thy lady saw nat thy distresse,Therefor thou yave hir up at Michelmesse!”[167]
I have said that Chaucer makes wide use of the astrological beliefs of his century in portraying character andhave shown how some of the strange astrological ideas of the people of his time are reflected in Chaucer’s poetry. It remains to consider somewhat more closely the relations between astrological faith and conduct, and Chaucer’s application of these relations to the dramatic action in his poems.
The inevitable logical outcome of astrological faith is the doctrine of Necessity. The invariability of the celestial motions suggested to early astrologers that there must be a higher power transcending and controlling them, and this power could be none other than Necessity. But, since the stars by their movements and positions were the regulators of mundane events and human affairs, it followed that human destiny on the earth was also under the sway of this relentless power of Necessity or Fate. Now it was the Stoics alone who developed a thorough-going fatalism and at the same time made it consistent with practical life and virtue. They taught that man could best find himself in complete submission to the divine law of destiny. The early Babylonian astrologers who originated the doctrine of necessity did not develop it to its logical consequences. Reasoning from certain very unusual occurrences that sometimes took place in the heavens, such as the appearance of comets, meteors and falling stars, they reached the conclusion that divine will at times arbitrarily interfered in the destined course of nature. So priests foretold future events from the configuration of the heavens, but professed ability to ward off threatened evils by spells and incantations, or, by purifications and sacrifices, to make the promised blessings more secure.
Now the fatalism of Chaucer’s characters is something like this. The general belief in the determination of human destiny by Fortune or Necessity is present and is expressed usually at moments of deep despair, when the longings of the heart and the struggles of the will have been relentlessly thwarted. When the Trojans decree that Criseyde must go to the Greeks in exchange for Antenor, Troilus pleads with Fortune:
“Than seyde he thus, ‘Fortune! allas the whyle!What have I doon, what have I thus a-gilt?How mightestow for reuthe me bigyle?Is ther no grace, and shall I thus be spilt?Shal thus Criseyde awey, for that thou wilt?Allas! how maystow in thyn herte findeTo been to me thus cruel and unkinde?..............................Allas! Fortune! if that my lyf in IoyeDisplesed hadde un-to thy foule envye,Why ne haddestow my fader, king of Troye,By-raft the lyf, or doon my bretheren dye,Or slayn my-self, that thus compleyne and crye,I, combre-world, that may of no-thing serve,But ever dye, and never fulle sterve?’”[168]