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Illustrations of Chaucer, No. V. | |
Foreign English—Guide to Amsterdam | |
Seven Children at a Birth three Times following | |
Ramasshed, Meaning of the Term | |
Authors of the Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, by E. Hawkins | |
Minor Notes:—Egg and Arrow Ornament—Defoe's Project for purifying the English Language—Great Fire of London—Noble or Workhouse Names | |
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Passages in the New Testament illustrated from Demosthenes | |
The House of Maillé | |
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The Family of the Tradescants, by Dr. E. F. Rimbault | |
Meaning of Venville, by E. Smirke | |
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Notes.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER NO. V.
The Arke of Artificial Day.
Before proceeding, to point out the indelible marks by which Chaucer has, as it were, stereotyped the true date of the journey to Canterbury, I shall clear away another stumbling-block, still more insurmountable to Tyrwhitt than his first difficulty of the "halfe cours" in Aries, viz. the seeming inconsistency in statements (1.) and (2.) in the following lines of the prologue to the Man of Lawe's tale:—
| (1.) |
| "Oure hoste saw wel that the bright sonne, The arke of his artificial day, had ironne The fourthe part and halfe an houre and more, |
| * * * * | ||
| (2.) |
| And saw wel that the shadow of every tree Was as in length of the same quantitie, That was the body erecte that caused it, And therefore by the shadow he toke his wit That Phebus, which that shone so clere and bright, Degrees was five and fourty clombe on hight, And for that day, as in that latitude It was ten of the clok, he gan conclude." |
The difficulty will be best explained in Tyrwhitt's own words:—
"Unfortunately, however, this description, though seemingly intended to be so accurate, will neither enable us to conclude with the MSS. that it was 'ten of the clock,' nor to fix upon any other hour; as the two circumstances just mentioned are not found to coincide in any part of the 28th, or of any other day of April, in this climate."—Introductory Discourse, § xiv.
In a foot-note, Tyrwhitt further enters into a calculation to show that, on the 28th of April, the fourth part of the day and half an hour and more (even with the liberal allowance of a quarter of an hour to the indefinite phrase 'and more') would have been completed by nine o'clock A.M. at the latest, and therefore at least an hour too soon for coincidence with (2.).