43. 'Ostendebat autem Carthaginem de excelso, et pleno stellarum ... loco ... tu eris unus, in quo nitatur civitatis salus, &c.... Omnibus qui patriam conservârint, adiuverint, auxerint, certum esse in cælo definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur.'
50. 'Quæsivi tamen, viveretne ipse et Paullus pater et alii, quos nos exstinctos arbitraremur. Immo vero, inquit, ii vivunt ... vestra vero, quæ dicitur vita, mors est ... corpore laxati ilium incolunt locum, quem vides. Erat autem is splendissimo candore inter flammas circus elucens, quem vos, ut a Graiis accepistis, orbem lacteum nuncupatis.'
56. Galaxye, milky way; see note to Ho. Fame, 936.
57. 'Stellarum autem globi terræ magnitudinem facile vincebant. Iam ipsa terra ita mihi parva visa est, &c.... Novem tibi orbibus, vel potius globis, connexa sunt omnia ... Hic, inquam, quis est, qui complet aures meas, tantus et tam dulcis sonus? ... impulsu et motu ipsorum orbium conficitur.'
59. The 'nine spheres' are the spheres of the seven planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), that of the fixed stars, and the primum mobile; see notes to the Treatise on the Astrolabe, part 1, § 17, in vol. iii.
61. This is an allusion to the so-called 'harmony of the spheres.' Chaucer makes a mistake in attributing this harmony to all of the nine spheres. Cicero plainly excludes the primum mobile, and says that, of the remaining eight spheres, two sound alike, so that there are but seven tones made by their revolution. 'Ille autem octo cursus, in quibus eadem vis est duorum, septem efficiunt distinctos intervallis sonos.' He proceeds to notice the peculiar excellence of the number seven. By the two that sounded alike, the spheres of Saturn and the fixed stars must be meant; in fact, it is usual to ignore the sphere of fixed stars, and consider only those of the seven planets. Macrobius, in his Commentary, lib. ii. c. 4, quite misses this point, and clumsily gives the same note to Venus and Mercury. Each planetary sphere, in its revolution, gives out a different note of the gamut, so that all the notes of the gamut are sounded; and the result is, that the 'music of the spheres' cannot be heard at all, just as the dwellers by the cataract on the Nile fail to hear the sound of its fall. 'Hoc sonitu oppletæ aures hominum obsurduerunt; nec est ullus hebetior sonus in vobis; sicut ubi Nilus ad illa, quæ Catadupa κατάδουποι nominantur, præcipitat ex altissimis montibus, ea gens, quæ illum locum accolit, propter magnitudinem sonitus, sensu audiendi caret.' Macrobius tries to explain it all in his Commentary, lib. ii. c. 1-4. The fable arose from a supposed necessary connection between the number of the planets and the number of musical notes in the scale. It breaks down when we know that the number of the planets is more than seven. Moreover, modern astronomy has exploded the singular notion of revolving hollow concentric spheres, to the surface of which each planet was immoveably nailed. These 'spheres' have disappeared, and their music with them, except in poetry.
Shakespeare so extends the old fable as to give a voice to every star. See Merch. of Venice, v. 60:—
'There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,' &c.