Through jelous Phebus this misaventure."
(It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of Chaucer, that in the poet's time the Sun would enter Taurus on the 12th of April.)
"Now flieth Venus in to Ciclinius tour,
With void corse, for fear of Phebus light."
These two lines, so obscure at first sight, afford, when properly understood, the strongest confirmation of the astronomical meaning of the whole; while, by indicating the conjunction on the last degree of Taurus, they furnish a most essential element for its identification.
I confess that this "Ciclinius" gave me a good deal of trouble; but, taking as a guide the astronomical myth so evident throughout, I came to the conviction that "Ciclinius" is a corruption, and that Chaucer wrote, or intended to write, Cyllenius—a well-known epithet of Mercury, and used too in an astronomical sense by Virgil, "ignis cœli Cyllenius."
Now the sign Gemini is also "domus Mercurii;" so that when Venus fled into the tour of Cyllenius, she simply slipped into the next door to her own house of Taurus—leaving poor Mars behind to halt after her as he best might.
6th. Mars is almost stationary:
"He passeth but a sterre in daies two."
There still remain one or two baffling points in the description, one of which is the line—