Let us examine how this interpretation consists with the other circumstances of the description. The feste-day of this Cambuscan was "The last idus of March"—that is, the 15th of March—"after the yere"—that is, after the equinoctial year, which had ended three or four days previously. Hence the sun was in three degrees of Aries—confirmed in Canace's expedition on the following morning, when he was "in the Ram foure degrees yronne," and his corresponding right ascension was twelve minutes. Now by "the angle meridional" was meant the two hours inequall immediately succeeding noon (or while the "1st House" of the sun was passing the meridian), and these two hours may, so near the equinox, be taken as ordinary hours. Therefore, when "Phebus hath left the angle meridional," it was two o'clock P.M., or eight hours after sunrise, which, added to twelve minutes, produces eight hours twelve minutes as the ascending point of the equinoctial. The ascending point of the ecliptic would consequently be twenty degrees in Leo, or within less than a degree of the actual place of the star Regulus, which in point of fact did rise on the 15th of March, in Chaucer's time, almost exactly at two in the afternoon.
Such coincidences as these could not result from mere accident; and, whatever may have been Speght's authority for the location of Aldryan, I shall never believe that Chaucer would refer to an inferior star when the great "Stella Regia" itself was in so remarkable a position for his purpose—assuming always, as a matter of course, that he referred his phenomena, not to the country or age wherein he laid the action of his tale, but to his own.
This, then, is the precedent by which I support the similar, and rather startling, interpretation I propose of these obscure words "In mena Libra alway."
There are two twin stars, of the same magnitude, and not far apart, each of which bears the Arabic title of Min al auwâ; one (β Virginis) in the sign Virgo—the other (δ Virginis) in that of Libra.
The latter, in the south of England, in Chaucer's time, would rise a few minutes before the autumnal equinoctial point, and might be called Libra Min al auwâ either from that circumstance, or to distinguish it from its namesake in Virgo.
Now on the 18th of April this Libra Min al auwâ would rise in the neighbourhood of Canterbury at about half-past three in the afternoon, so that by four o'clock it would attain an altitude of about five degrees—not more than sufficient to render the moon, supposing it to have risen with the star, visible (by daylight) to the pilgrims "entrying at a towne's end."
It is very remarkable that the only year, perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's lifetime, in which the moon could have arisen with this star on the 18th of April, should be the identical year to which Tyrwhitt, reasoning from historical evidence alone, would fain attribute the writing of the Canterbury Tales. (Vide Introductory Discourse, note 3.)
On the 18th of April, 1388, Libra Min al auwâ, and the moon, rose together about half-past three P. M. in the neighbourhood of Canterbury; and Tyrwhitt, alluding to the writing of the Canterbury Tales, "could hardly suppose it was much advanced before 1389!"
Such a coincidence is more than remarkable—it is convincing: especially when we add to it that 1388 "is the very date that, by a slight and probable injury to the last figure, might become the traditional one of 1383!"
Should my view, therefore, of the true reading of this passage in Chaucer be correct, it becomes of infinitely greater interest and importance than a mere literal emendation, because it supplies that which has always been supposed wanting to the Canterbury Tales, viz., some means of identifying the year to which their action ought to be attributed. Hitherto, so unlikely has it appeared that Chaucer, who so amply furnishes materials for the minor branches of the date, should leave the year unnoted, that it has been accounted for in the supposition that he reserved it for the unfinished portion of his performance. But if we consider the ingenious though somewhat tortuous methods resorted to by him to convey some of the other data, it is by no means improbable that he might really have devised this circumstance of the moon's rising as a means of at least corroborating a date that he might intend to record afterwards in more direct terms.