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’s sphere 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 the Knightes Tale Saturn, 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 the Compleynt of Mars to the conjunction of Venus and Mars[131], there are occasional references in Chaucer to conjunctions of other planets. In the Astrolabe[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 in Troilus 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 it via lactea and the Roman peasants, strada di Roma; pilgrims to Spain referred to it as the road to Santiago; Dante refers to it as “the white circle commonly called St. Janus’s Way”[134]; and the English had two names for it, Walsingham way and Watling-street.
Chaucer twice mentions the Galaxy; once in the Parlement 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 the Hous 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: