[86] Troilus and Criseyde, IV. 1591.
[87] Book of the Duchesse, 820-26.
[88] Romaunt of the Rose, 1010-12.
[89] See [Appendix VI].
[90] Marchantes Tale, E. 1885-8.
To pass from the second degree of Taurus into Cancer the moon would have to traverse the remaining twenty-eight degrees of Taurus, thirty of Gemini and at least one of Cancer, making 59° of the zodiac in all. For the moon to do this is possible, as Skeat has shown. See [Appendix VII].
[91] Marchantes Tale, E. 1893-6.
[92] Troilus and Criseyde, IV. 1590-96. Chaucer’s reference to the moon’s motion is again correct. It would, in fact, take the moon about ten days to pass from Aries through Leo, traversing four signs, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo, or about one-third of the whole zodiac. See Skeat, Notes to Troilus and Criseyde, p. 494.
[93] The moon.
[94] The ‘sign-bearer’; that is, the zodiac. His candles are of course the stars and planets that appear in the zodiac.