“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 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: