Of all the heavenly bodies the one most often mentioned and employed for
poetic purposes by Chaucer is the sun. Chaucer has many epithets for the
sun, but speaks of him perhaps most often in the classical manner as
Phebus or Apollo. He is called the "golden tressed Phebus"[57] or the
"laurer-crowned Phebus;"[58] and when he makes Mars flee from Venus'
palace he is called the "candel of Ielosye."[59] In the following passage
Chaucer uses three different epithets for the sun within two lines:
"The dayes honour, and the hevenes ye,
The nightes fo, al this clepe I the sonne,
Gan westren faste, and dounward for to wrye,
As he that hadde his dayes cours y-ronne;"[60]
Sometimes Chaucer gives the sun the various accessories with which
classical myth had endowed him--the four swift steeds, the rosy chariot
and fiery torches:
"And Phebus with his rosy carte sone
Gan after that to dresse him up to fare."[61]
"'now am I war
That Pirous and tho swifte stedes three,
Which that drawen forth the sonnes char,
Hath goon some by-path in despyt of me;'"[62]
"Phebus, that was comen hastely
Within the paleys-yates sturdely,
With torche in honde, of which the stremes brighte
On Venus chambre knokkeden ful lighte."[63]
Almost always when Chaucer wishes to mention the time of day at which the
events he is relating take place, he does so by describing the sun's
position in the sky or the direction of his motion. We can imagine that
Chaucer often smiled as he did this, for he sometimes humorously
apologizes for his poetical conceits and conventions by expressing his
idea immediately afterwards in perfectly plain terms. Such is the case in
the passage already quoted where Chaucer refers to the sun by the epithets
"dayes honour," "hevenes ye," and "nightes fo" and then explains them by
saying "al this clepe I the sonne;" and in the lines:
"Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe;
For thorisonte hath reft the sonne his light;"
explained by the simple words:
"This is as muche to seye as it was night."[64]
Thus it is that Chaucer's poetic references to the apparent daily motion
of the sun about the earth are nearly always simply in the form of
allusions to his rising and setting. Canacee in the _Squieres Tale_, (F.
384 ff.) is said to rise at dawn, looking as bright and fresh as the
spring sun risen four degrees from the horizon.
"Up ryseth fresshe Canacee hir-selve,
As rody and bright as dooth the yonge sonne,
That in the Ram[65] is four degrees up-ronne;
Noon hyer was he, whan she redy was;"
Many of these references to the rising and setting of the sun might be
mentioned, if space permitted, simply for their beauty as poetry. One of
the most beautiful is the following:
"And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte,
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes, hanging on the leves."[66]
When, in the _Canterbury Tales_, the manciple has finished his tale,
Chaucer determines the time by observing the position of the sun and by
making calculations from the length of his own shadow:
"By that the maunciple hadde his tale al ended,
The sonne fro the south lyne was descended
So lowe, that he nas nat, to my sighte,
Degrees nyne and twenty as in highte.
Foure of the clokke it was tho, as I gesse;
For eleven foot, or litel more or lesse,
My shadwe was at thilke tyme, as there,
Of swich feet as my lengthe parted were
In six feet equal of porporcioun."[67]
We must not omit mention of the humorous touch with which Chaucer, in the
mock heroic tale of _Chanticleer and the Fox_ told by the nun's priest,
makes even the rooster determine the time of day by observing the altitude
of the sun in the sky:
"Chauntecleer, in al his pryde,
His seven wyves walkyng by his syde,
Caste up his eyen to the brighte sonne,
That in the signe of Taurus hadde y-ronne
Twenty degrees and oon, and somewhat more;
And knew by kynde, and by noon other lore,
That it was pryme, and crew with blisful stevene.
'The sonne,' he sayde, 'is clomben up on hevene
Fourty degrees and oon, and more, y-wis.'"[68]
Moreover, this remarkable rooster observed that the sun had passed the
twenty-first degree in Taurus, and we are told elsewhere that he knew each
ascension of the equinoctial and crew at each; that is, he crew every
hour, as 15 deg. of the equinoctial correspond to an hour:
"Wel sikerer was his crowing in his logge,
Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge.
By nature knew he ech ascencioun[69]
Of th' equinoxial in thilke toun;
For whan degrees fiftene were ascended,
Thanne crew he, that it mighte nat ben amended."[70]
Chaucer announces the approach of evening by describing the position and
appearance of the sun more often than any other time of the day. In the
_Legend of Good Women_ he speaks of the sun's leaving the south point[71]
of his daily course and approaching the west:
"Whan that the sonne out of the south gan weste,"[72]
and again of his westward motion in the lines:
"And whan that hit is eve, I rene blyve,
As sone as ever the sonne ginneth weste,"[73]
Elsewhere Chaucer refers to the setting of the sun by saying that he has
completed his "ark divine" and may no longer remain on the horizon,[74] or
by saying that the 'horizon has bereft the sun of his light.'[75]
Chaucer's references to the daily motion of the sun about the earth are
apt to sound to us like purely poetical figures, so accustomed are we to
refer to the sun, what we know to be the earth's rotatory motion, by
speaking of his apparent daily motion thus figuratively as if it were
real. Chaucer's manner of describing the revolution of the heavenly bodies
about the earth and his application of poetic epithets to them are
figurative, but the motion itself was meant literally and was believed in
by the men of his century, because only the geocentric system of astronomy
was then known. If Chaucer had been in advance of his century in this
respect there would certainly be some hint of the fact in his writings.
References in Chaucer to the sun's yearly motion are in the same sense
literal. The apparent motion of the sun along the ecliptic,[76] which we
know to be caused by the earth's yearly motion in an elliptical orbit
around the sun, was then believed to be an actual movement of the sun
carried along by his revolving sphere. Like the references to the sun's
daily movements those that mention his yearly motion along the ecliptic
are also usually time references. The season of the year is indicated by
defining the sun's position among the signs of the zodiac. The Canterbury
pilgrims set out on their journey in April when
"the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-ronne."[77]
In describing the month of May, Chaucer does not fail to mention the sun's
position in the zodiac:
"In May, that moder is of monthes glade,
That fresshe floures, blewe, and whyte, and rede,
Ben quike agayn, that winter dede made,
And ful of bawme is fletinge every mede;
Whan Phebus doth his brighte bemes sprede
Right in the whyte Bole, it so bitidde
As I shal singe, on Mayes day the thridde,"[78] etc.
The effect of the sun's declination in causing change of seasons[79] is
mentioned a number of times in Chaucer's poetry. The poet makes a general
reference to the fact in a passage of exquisite beauty from _Troilus and
Criseyde_ where he says that the sun has thrice returned to his lofty
position in the sky and melted away the snows of winter:
"The golden-tressed Phebus heighe on-lofte
Thryes hadde alle with his bemes shene
The snowes molte, and Zephirus as ofte
Y-brought ayein the tendre leves grene,
Sin that the sone of Ecuba the quene
Bigan to love hir first, for whom his sorwe
Was al, that she departe sholde a-morwe."[80]
More interesting astronomically but of less interest as poetry is his
reference to the sun's declination and its effect on the seasons in the
_Frankeleyns Tale_, because here Chaucer uses the word 'declination' and
states that it is the cause of the seasons. The reference is the beginning
of Aurelius' prayer to Apollo, or the sun:
"'Apollo, God and governour
Of every plaunte, herbe, tree and flour,
That yevest, after thy declinacioun,
To ech of hem his tyme and his sesoun,
As thyn herberwe chaungeth lowe or hye;'"[81]
Once again in the _Frankeleyns Tale_ Chaucer refers to the sun's
declination and the passage of the seasons:
"Phebus wex old, and hewed lyk latoun,[82]
That in his hote declinacioun
Shoon as the burned gold with stremes brighte;
But now in Capricorn adoun he lighte,
Wher-as he shoon ful pale, I dar wel seyn."[83]
Chaucer is here contrasting the sun's appearance in summer and winter. In
his hot declination (his greatest northward declination in Cancer, about
June 21) he shines as burnished gold, but when he reaches Capricornus, his
greatest southward declination (about December 21) he appears 'old' and
has a dull coppery color, no longer that of brilliant gold.