“mannes help and his confort,
His paradys terrestre and his disport.”[34]
When Aeneas reaches Carthage he
“is come to Paradys
Out of the swolow of helle, and thus in Ioye
Remembreth him of his estat in Troye.”[35]
Chaucer mentions paradise several times in its literal sense as the abode of Adam and Eve before their fall. In the Monkes Tale we are told that Adam held sway over all paradise excepting one tree.[36] Again, the pardoner speaks of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise:
“Adam our fader, and his wyf also,
Fro Paradys to labour and to wo
Were driven for that vyce, it is no drede;
For whyl that Adam fasted, as I rede,
He was in Paradys; and whan that he
Eet of the fruyt defended on the tree,
Anon he was out-cast to we and peyne.”[37]
5. The Four Elements.
The idea of four elements[38] has its origin in the attempts of the early Greek cosmologists to discover the ultimate principle of reality in the universe.
Thales reached the conclusion that this principle was water, Anaximines, that it was air, and Heracleitus, fire, while Parmenides supposed two elements, fire or light, subtle and rarefied, and earth or night, dense and heavy. Empedocles of Agrigentum (about 450 B. C.) assumed as primary elements all four—fire, air, water, and earth—of which each of his predecessors had assumed only one or two. To explain the manifold phenomena of nature he supposed them to be produced by combinations of the elements in different proportions through the attractive and repulsive forces of ‘love’ and ‘discord.’ This arbitrary assumption of four elements, first made by Empedocles, persisted in the popular imagination throughout the Middle Ages and is, like other cosmological ideas of antiquity, sometimes reflected in the poetry of the time.
The elements in mediaeval cosmology were assigned to a definite region of the universe. Being mortal and imperfect they occupied four spheres below the moon, the elemental region or region of imperfection, as distinguished from the ethereal region above the moon. Immediately within the sphere of the moon came that of Fire, below this the Air, then Water, and lowest of all the solid sphere of Earth. Fire being the most ethereal of the elements constantly tends to rise upward, while Earth sinks towards the center of the universe. This contrast is a favorite idea with Dante, who says in the Paradiso i. 112-117:
“‘wherefore they move to diverse ports o’er the
great sea of being, and each one with
instinct given it to bear it on.
This beareth the fire toward the moon; this
is the mover in the hearts of things that die;
this doth draw the earth together and unite it.’”