'Li ung [_arbre_] fu loing de l'autre assis
Plus de cinq toises, ou de sis,' &c.
Chaucer has treated a _toise_ as if it were equal to two feet; it was
really about six. In his own translation of the Romaunt, l. 1393, he
translates _toise_ by _fadome_. See p. 151 (above).
429. According to the Book of St. Albans, fol. e 4, the buck was called _a
fawne_ in his first year, _a preket_ in the second, _a sowrell_ in the
third, _a sowre_ in the fourth, _a bucke of the fyrst hede_ in the fifth,
and _a bucke_ (simply) in the sixth year. Also _a roo_ is the female of the
_roobucke_.
435. _Argus_ is put for _Algus_, the old French name for the inventor of
the Arabic numerals; it occurs in l. 16373 of the Roman de la Rose, which
mentions him in company with Euclid and Ptolemy--
'_Algus_, Euclides, Tholomees.'
This name was obviously confused with that of the hundred-eyed Argus.
This name _Algus_ was evolved out of the O.F. _algorisme_, which, as Dr.
Murray says, is a French adaptation 'from the Arab. _al-Khow[=a]razm[=i]_,
the _native of Khw[=a]razm_ (_Khiva_), surname of the Arab mathematician
Abu Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, who flourished early in the 9th century, and
through the translation of whose work on Algebra, the Arabic numerals
became generally known in Europe. Cf. _Euclid_ = plane geometry.' He was
truly 'a noble countour,' to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. That
_Algus_ was sometimes called _Argus_, also appears from the Roman de la
Rose, ll. 12994, &c., which is clearly the very passage which Chaucer here
copies:--
'Se mestre _Argus_ li bien contens
I vosist bien metre ses cures,
E venist _o ses dix figures_,
Par quoi tout certefie et nombre,
Si ne péust-il pas le nombre
Des grans contens certefier,
Tant seust bien monteplier.'
Here _o_ means 'with'; so that Chaucer has copied the very phrase 'with his
figures ten.' But still more curiously, Jean de Meun here rimes _nombre_,
pres. sing. indic., with _nombre_, sb.; and Chaucer rimes _noumbre_,
infin., with _noumbre_, sb. likewise. _Countour_ in l. 435 means
'arithmetician'; in the next line it means an abacus or counting-board, for
assisting arithmetical operations.
437. _His figures ten_; the ten Arabic numerals, i. e. from 1 to 9, and the
cipher 0.
438. _Al ken_, all kin, i. e. mankind, all men. This substitution of _ken_
for _kin_ (A.S. _cyn_) seems to have been due to the exigencies of rime, as
Chaucer uses _kin_ elsewhere. However, Gower has the same form--'And of
what _ken_ that she was come'; Conf. Am. b. viii; ed. Pauli, iii. 332. So
also in Will. of Palerne, 722--'Miself knowe ich nou[gh]t mi _ken_'; and
five times at least in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, as it is a Kentish form. It
was, doubtless, a permissible variant.