[35] The Legend of Good Women, III. 1103 ff.
[36] The Monkes Tale, B. 3200.
[37] The Pardoneres Tale, C. 505-511.
[38] In the time of Hamurabi, 2,000 years before Christ, the Chaldeans worshipped as beneficent or formidable powers, the Earth, that may give or refuse sustenance to man, the Waters that fertilize or devastate, the Winds that blow from the four quarters of the world, Fire that warms or devours and all forces of nature which, in their sidereal religion, they confounded with the stars, giving them the generic name of ‘Elements.’ But the system that recognizes only four elements as the original sources of all that exists in nature, was created by the Greek philosophers.
See F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (1912), p. 33.
[39] Paradiso i. 92-93.
[40] Paradiso i. 130-135.
[41] Book III.: Metre IX. 13 ff.
[42] The Knightes Tale, A. 2991-3.
[43] Troilus and Criseyde, V. 1807-10.