Astrology, though resembling a science in that it makes use of observation
and seeks to establish laws governing its data, is in reality a faith or
creed. It had its beginning, so tradition tells us, in the faith of the
ancient Babylonians in certain astral deities who exerted an influence
upon terrestrial events and human life. The basis of this faith was not
altogether illogical but contained a germ of truth.
Of all the heavenly bodies, the sun exerted the most obvious effect upon
the earth; the sun brought day and night, summer and winter; his rays
lured growing things from mother earth and so gave sustenance to mankind.
But to the ancient peoples of the Orient the sun was also often a baneful
power; he could destroy as well as give life. Therefore, the ancients came
to look upon the sun as a great and powerful god to be worshipped and
propitiated by men. And if the sun was such a power, it was natural to
believe that all the other bright orbs of the sky were lesser divinities
who exercised more limited powers on the earth. From this beginning,
based, as we have seen, on a germ of fact, by the power of his imagination
and credulity, man extended more and more the powers of these sidereal
divinities, attributing to their volition and influence all the most
insignificant as well as the most important terrestrial events. And if the
heavenly bodies, by revolving about the earth in ceaseless harmony,
effected the recurrence of day and night and of the seasons, and if their
configurations were responsible for the minutest events in nature, was it
not natural to suppose that, besides affecting man thus indirectly, they
also influenced him directly and were responsible for his conduct and for
the very qualities of his mind and soul? Perhaps the astonishing variety
of the influences that the celestial bodies, from ancient until modern
times, were supposed to exercise over the world and the life of mankind
can be accounted for by imagining some such process of thought to have
been involved in the beginnings of astrology.
It was but a step from faith in stellar influence on our earth to the
belief that, as the heavenly movements were governed by immutable laws, so
their influence upon the world would follow certain laws and its effects
in the future could be determined as certainly as could the coming
revolutions and conjunctions of the stars. Out of this two-fold belief was
evolved a complex system of divination, the origin of which was forgotten
as men, believing in it, invented reasons for believing, pretending that
their faith was founded on a long series of observations. The Chaldeans
believed that in discovering the unceasing regularity of the celestial
motions, they had found the very laws of life and they built upon this
conviction a mass of absolutely rigid dogmas. But when experience belied
these dogmas, unable to realize the falsity of their presuppositions and
to give up their faith in the divine stars, the astrologers invented new
dogmas to explain the old ones, thus piling up a body of complicated and
often contradictory doctrines that will ever be to the student a source
of perplexity and astonishment.
On its philosophical side astrology was a system of astral theology
developed, not by popular thought, but through the careful observations
and speculations of learned priests and scholars. It was a purely Eastern
science which came into being on the Chaldean plains and in the Nile
valley. As far as we know, it was entirely unknown to any of the primitive
Aryan races, from Hindostan to Scandinavia. Astrology as a system of
divination never gained a foothold in Greece during the brightest period
of her intellectual life. But the dogma of astral divinity was zealously
maintained by the greatest of Greek philosophers. Plato, the great
idealist, whose influence upon the theology of the ancient and even of the
modern world was more profound than that of any other thinker, called the
stars "visible gods" ranking them just below the supreme eternal Being;
and to Plato these celestial gods were infinitely superior to the
anthropomorphic gods of the popular religion, who resembled men in their
passions and were superior to them only in beauty of form and in power.
Aristotle defended with no less zeal the doctrine of the divinity of the
stars, seeing in them eternal substances, principles of movement, and
therefore divine beings. In the Hellenistic period, Zeno, the Stoic, and
his followers proclaimed the supremacy of the sidereal divinities even
more strongly than the schools of Plato and Aristotle had done. The Stoics
conceived the world as a great organism whose "sympathetic" forces
constantly interacted upon one another, governed by Reason which was of
the essence of ethereal Fire, the primordial substance of the universe. To
the stars, the purest manifestation of the power of this ethereal
substance, were attributed the greatest influence and the loftiest divine
qualities. The Stoics developed the doctrine of fatalism, which is the
inevitable outcome of faith in stellar influence on human life, to its
consequences; yet they proved by facts that fatalism is not incompatible
with active and virtuous living. By the end of the Roman imperial period
astrology had transformed paganism, replacing the old society of Immortals
who were scarcely superior to mortals, except in being exempted from old
age and death, by faith in the eternal beings who ran their course in
perfect harmony throughout the ages, whose power, regulated by the
unvarying celestial motions, extended over all the earth and determined
the destiny of the whole human race.
Astrology, as a science and a system of divination, exerted a profound
influence over the mediaeval mind. No court was without its practicing
astrologer and the universities all had their professors of astrology. The
practice of astrology was an essential part of the physician's profession,
and before prescribing for a patient it was thought quite as important to
determine the positions of the planets as the nature of the disease.[139]
Interesting evidence of this fact is found in the _Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales_ where Chaucer speaks of the Doctour's knowledge and use
of astrology as if it were his chief excellence as a physician:
"In al this world ne was ther noon him lyk
To speke of phisik and of surgerye;
For he was grounded in astronomye.
He kepte his pacient a ful greet del
In houres, by his magik naturel.
Wel coude he fortunen the ascendent
Of his images for his pacient."[140]
Yet in spite of the esteem in which astrological divination was held by
most people in the Middle Ages, Dante, the greatest exponent of the
thought and learning of that period, shows practically no knowledge of the
technical and practical side of astrology. When he refers to the specific
effects of the planets it is only to those most familiarly known, and he
nowhere uses such technical terms as "houses" or "aspects" of planets. But
Dante, like the great philosophers of the earlier periods, was undoubtedly
influenced by the philosophical doctrines of astrology, and a general
belief in the influence of the celestial spheres upon human life was
deeply rooted in his mind. To him the ceaseless and harmonious movements
of the celestial bodies were the manifestations and instruments of God's
providence, and were ordained by the First Mover to govern the destinies
of the earth and human life.
We can see this conviction of Dante's with perfect certainty when we read
the _Divina Commedia_. For Dante's poetry is highly subjective; on every
page his own personal thoughts and feelings are revealed quite openly.
Chaucer's poetry, on the other hand, is objective; he tells us almost
nothing directly about himself and what we learn of him in his writings is
almost entirely by inference. Chaucer's frequent use of astrology in his
poetry would make it hard to believe that he was not considerably
influenced by its philosophical aspects, at least in the general way that
Dante was. Part and parcel of the dramatic action in most of his poems is
the idea of stellar influences. Yet we cannot assert, with the same
assurance that we can say it of Dante, that Chaucer believed, even in a
general way, in the influence of the stars on human life. In Dante's
poetry, as we have said, the poet himself is always before us. Chaucer,
with Socratic irony, always makes it plain to the reader that his attitude
is purely objective, that he is only the narrator of what he has seen or
dreamed, only the copyist of another's story. Even when Chaucer makes
himself one of the protagonists, as in the _Hous of Fame_ and the
_Canterbury Tales_, it is only that his narrative may be the more
convincing. He tells a story and makes its protagonists actually live
before us, as individual men and women. It is possible to imagine all of
his use of astrology in his poetry not as the reflection of his own faith
in its cosmic philosophy, but the expression of his genius for
understanding people and truthfully describing life and character.
Considerable discussion as to Chaucer's attitude towards astrology has
been called forth by passages in which he speaks in words of scorn with
regard to some of the practices and magic arts that were often used in
connection with astrology. In the _Astrolabe_ after describing somewhat at
length the favorable and unfavorable positions of planets he says:
"Natheles, thise ben observauncez of iudicial matiere and rytes of
payens, in which my spirit ne hath no feith, ne no knowing of hir
horoscopum."[141]
Again in the _Franklin's Tale_ he speaks in a similar disdainful tone of
astrological magic:
"He him remembred that, upon a day,
At Orliens in studie a book he say
Of magik naturel, which his felawe,
That was that tyme a bacheler of lawe,
Al were he ther to lerne another craft,
Had prively upon his desk y-laft;
Which book spak muchel of the operaciouns,
Touchinge the eighte and twenty mansiouns
That longen to the mone, and swich folye,
As in our dayes is not worth a flye:
For holy chirches feith in our bileve
Ne suffreth noon illusion us to greve."[142]
And elsewhere in the same tale he writes:
"So atte laste he hath his tyme y-founde
To maken his Iapes and his wreccednesse
Of switch a supersticious cursednesse."[143]
Here follows a long description of the clerk's instruments and
astrological observances, ending in the lines
"For swiche illusiouns and swiche meschaunces
As hethen folk used in thilke dayes;
For which no lenger maked he delayes,
But thurgh his magik, for a wyke or tweye,
It seemed that alle the rokkes were aweye."[144]
On the strength of these passages Professor T. R. Lounsbury[145] holds
that Chaucer was far ahead of most of his contemporaries in his attitude
toward the superstitious practices connected with the astrology of his
day; that his attitude toward judicial astrology was one of total
disbelief and scorn; and he even goes so far as to say that Chaucer was
guilty of a breach of artistic workmanship in expressing his disbelief so
scornfully in a tale in which the very climax of the dramatic action
depends upon a feat of astrological magic.
A more satisfactory interpretation of the passages quoted above is
advanced by Professor J. S. P. Tatlock,[146] who shows that Chaucer has
taken great pains to place the setting of the _Franklin's Tale_ in ancient
times and that he, in common with most of the educated men of his day,
disapproved of the practices (except sometimes when employed for good
purposes as, e. g. in the physician's profession) and the practicians of
judicial astrology in his own day, but thought of the feats and
observances of astrological magic as having been possible and efficacious
in ancient times. According to this view Chaucer's attitude was one of
disapproval rather than disbelief, and his disapproval was not for the
general theory of astrology, but for the shady observances and quackery
connected with its application to the problems of life in his time. It is
to be noted, further, that wherever Chaucer speaks in the strongest terms
against astrological observances he also uses religious language. This
fact may point to a wise caution on his part lest his evident interest in
astrology, (which was closely associated with magic, and hence,
indirectly, with sorcery) might involve him in difficulties with Mother
Church; and, as Professor Tatlock has pointed out, there is no reason to
suppose that Chaucer's religious expressions in these passages are
insincere.
The _Franklin's Tale_ falls in the group of tales called by Professor
Kittredge the "Marriage Group,"[147] that in which the Wife of Bath is the
most conspicuous figure. The Wife of Bath's tale had aroused a rather
heated controversy among a number of the Canterbury pilgrims on the
subject of the respective duties and relations of wives and husbands. If
the critics have been right in placing the _Franklin's Tale_ where they
do, it was Chaucer's purpose to have the Franklin soothe the ruffled
feelings of certain members of the party by telling a tale in which a
husband (and wife), a squire, and a clerk, all prove themselves capable of
truly generous behavior. If the tale was to accomplish its purpose the
clerk must accomplish his magic feat of removing the rocks from the coast
of Brittany, and must in the end generously refuse to accept pay from the
squire when he learned that the latter had been too magnanimous to profit
from his services. By setting the tale in pagan times, Chaucer was able to
express the scorn he felt for certain superstitious practices in his own
time without debasing one of his chief characters, one of the three rivals
in magnanimity, and so spoiling the noble temper of the story and entirely
defeating its purpose.
Thus the astrological passages in the _Franklin's Tale_ do not suggest
total disbelief in astrology on Chaucer's part, and much less do they show
him to have been lacking in true artistic sense. Probably his attitude
toward astrology was about this: he was very much interested in it,
perhaps in much the same way that Dante was, because of the philosophical
ideas at the basis of astrology and out of curiosity as to the problems of
free will, providence, and so on, that naturally arose from it. For the
shady practices and quackery connected with its use in his own day he had
nothing but scorn.
But while Chaucer was at one with the educated men of his century in his
attitude toward astrology, and with them had a strong distaste for certain
aspects of judicial astrology, nevertheless he made wide use of the
greater faith of the majority of people of his time in portraying
character in his poetry. For men's ideas and beliefs constitute a very
important part of their character, and Chaucer knew this very well. Men
believed that whatever happened to them, whether fortunate or unfortunate,
could in some way be traced to the influence of the stars, the agents and
instruments of destiny. The configuration of the heavens at the moment of
one's birth was considered especially important, since the positions and
interrelations of the different celestial bodies at this time could
determine the most momentous events of one's life. Now the nature of the
influence exerted by the different stars, especially the planets and
zodiacal constellations, varied greatly. Mars and Venus, for instance,
bestowed vastly different qualities upon the soul that was coming into
being. Moreover, the power exerted by a planet or constellation fluctuated
considerably according to its position. Each planet had in the zodiac a
position of greatest and a position of least power called its 'exaltation'
and 'depression.' Furthermore, the 'aspect' or angular distance of one
planet from another altered its influence in various ways. If Mars and
Jupiter, for instance, were in trine or sextile aspect the portent was
favorable, if in opposition, it was unfavorable.[148] These ideas are
frequently expressed in Chaucer, when the characters seek to understand
their misfortunes or to justify their conduct by tracing them back to the
determinations of the heavens at their birth. When Palamon and Arcite have
been thrown into prison the latter pleads with his companion to have
patience; this misfortune was fixed upon them at the time of their birth
by the disposition of the planets and constellations, and complaining is
of no avail:
"'For Goddes love, tak al in pacience
Our prisoun, for it may non other be;
Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee.
Som wikke aspect or disposicioun
Of Saturne, by sum constellacioun
Hath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn;
So stood the heven whan that we were born;
We moste endure it: this is the short and pleyn.'"[149]
In the _Man of Lawes Tale_ the effect of the stars at the time of a man's
nativity is discussed somewhat at length. The Man of Law predicts the fate
of the sultan by saying that the destiny written in the stars had perhaps
allotted to him death through love:
"Paraventure in thilke large book
Which that men clepe the heven, y-writen was
With sterres, whan that he his birthe took,
That he for love shulde han his deeth, allas!
For in the sterres, clerer than is glas,
Is writen, god wot, who-so coude it rede,
The deeth of every man, withouten drede."[150]
Then he mentions the names of various ancient heroes whose death, he says
was written in the stars "er they were born:"
"In sterres, many a winter ther-biforn,
Was written the deeth of Ector, Achilles,
Of Pompey, Iulius, er they were born;
The stryf of Thebes; and of Ercules,
Of Sampson, Turnus, and of Socrates
The deeth; but mennes wittes been so dulle,
That no wight can wel rede it atte fulle."[151]
When Criseyde learns that she is to be sent to the Greeks in exchange for
Antenor she attributes her misfortune to the stars:
"'Alas!' quod she, 'out of this regioun
I, woful wrecche and infortuned wight,
And born in corsed constellacioun,
Mot goon, and thus departen fro my knight;'"[152]
In the _Legend of Good Women_ we are told that Hypermnestra was "born to
all good things" or qualities, and then the various influences of the
particular planets upon her destiny are mentioned:
"The whiche child, of hir nativitee,
To alle gode thewes born was she,
As lyked to the goddes, or she was born,
That of the shefe she sholde be the corn;
The Wirdes, that we clepen Destinee,
Hath shapen her that she mot nedes be
Pitouse, sadde, wyse, and trewe as steel;
And to this woman hit accordeth weel.
For, though that Venus yaf her great beautee,
With Jupiter compouned so was she
That conscience, trouthe, and dreed of shame,
And of hir wyfhood for to keep her name,
This, thoughte her, was felicitee as here.
And rede Mars was, that tyme of the yere,
So feble, that his malice is him raft,
Repressed hath Venus his cruel craft;
What with Venus and other oppressioun
Of houses, Mars his venim is adoun,
That Ypermistra dar nat handle a knyf
In malice, thogh she sholde lese her lyf.
But natheles, as heven gan tho turne,
To badde aspectes hath she of Saturne,
That made her for to deyen in prisoun,
As I shal after make mencioun."[153]
The purpose of this astrological passage is plainly to show why
Hypermnestra was doomed to die in prison. The qualities given her by the
planets, as shown by her horoscope, were such that she was unable to
violate a wife's duty and kill her husband in order to save her own
life.[154] Venus gave her great beauty and was also influential in
repressing the influence of Mars who would have given her fighting
qualities if his influence had been strong. The myth of the amour between
Venus and Mars, which Chaucer makes the basis of his poem the _Compleynt
of Mars_, would explain why Venus was able to influence Mars in this way.
The feeble influence of Mars at Hypermnestra's nativity is accounted for
also in another way. His influence is feeble because of the time of year
and through the "oppressioun of houses" both of which amount to the same
thing, namely, a position in the zodiac in which his power is at a
minimum.[155] The influence of Jupiter, we are told, was to give
Hypermnestra conscience, truth, and wifely loyalty. That of Saturn was
evil and the cause of her death in prison.
The specific influences of Saturn are mentioned in detail in the _Knightes
Tale_. Almost all the ills imaginable are attributable to his power:
"'My dere doghter Venus,' quod Saturne,
'My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne,
Hath more power than wot any man.
Myn is the drenching in the see so wan;
Myn is the prison in the derke cote;
Myn is the strangling and hanging by the throte;
The murmure, and the cherles rebelling,
The groyning, and the pryvee empoysoning;
I do vengeance and pleyn correccioun
Whyl I dwelle in the signe of the leoun.
Myn is the ruine of the hye halles,
The falling of the toures and of the walles
Up-on the mynour or the carpenter.
I slow Sampsoun in shaking the piler;
And myne be the maladyes colde,
The derke tresons, and the castes olde;
My loking is the fader of pestilence.'"[156]
In the line,
"Myn is the prison in the derke cote;"
imprisonment is for the second time attributed to Saturn's influence. In
an earlier passage in the _Knightes Tale_[157], (see p. 59) it is
suggested when Palamon and Arcite's imprisonment is said to be due to
'some wicked aspect or disposition of Saturn' at the time of their birth.
Later in the story Palamon specifically states that his imprisonment is
through Saturn:
"But I mot been in prison thurgh Saturne,"[158]
That Mars and Saturn were generally regarded as planets of evil influence
is shown by a passage in the _Astrolabe_. Chaucer has just explained what
the 'ascendant', means in astrology. It is that degree of the zodiac that
at the given time is seen upon the eastern horizon. Now, Chaucer says, the
ascendant may be 'fortunate or unfortunate,' thus:
"a fortunat ascendent clepen they whan that
no wykkid planete, as Saturne or Mars, or elles the Tail of the
Dragoun, is in the house of the assendent, ne that no wikked planets
have non aspects of enemite up-on the assendent;"[159]
The Wife of Bath attributes the two principal qualities of her
disposition, amorousness and pugnaciousness, to the planets Venus and
Mars:
"For certes, I am al Venerien
In felinge, and myn herte is Marcien.
Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse,
And Mars yaf me my sturdy hardinesse.
Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars ther-inne.
Allas! allas! that ever love was sinne!
I folwed ay myn inclinacioun
By vertu of my constellacioun."[160]
A little later in her _Prologue_ the Wife contrasts the influences of
Mercury and Venus. As a jibe at the Clerk who was in the company of
Canterbury pilgrims she has just said that clerks cannot possibly speak
well of wives, and that women could tell tales of clerks if they would.
She upholds her statement thus: Wives are the children of Venus, clerks,
of Mercury, two planets that are 'in their working full contrarious:'
"The children of Mercurie and of Venus
Been in hir wirking ful contrarious;
Mercurie loveth wisdom and science,
And Venus loveth ryot and dispence.
And, for hir diverse disposicioun,
Ech falleth in otheres exaltacioun;
And thus, got woot! Mercurie is desolat
In Pisces, wher Venus is exaltat;
And Venus falleth ther Mercurie is reysed;
Therefore no womman of no clerk is preysed."[161]
Venus has her exaltation in the sign in which Mercury has his depression.
Therefore the two signs have opposite virtues and influences, and the
children of one can see little good in the children of the other.
We have seen how the stars were supposed to control human destiny by
bestowing certain qualities upon souls at birth. We shall next consider
how they were thought to influence men more indirectly, through their
effects on terrestrial events. Certain positions of the heavenly bodies
with regard to one another could cause heavy rains. The clerk in the
_Milleres Tale_ predicts a great rain through observation of the moon's
position:
"'Now John,' quod Nicholas, 'I wol nat lye;
I have y-founde in myn astrologye,
As I have loked in the mone bright,
That now, a Monday next, at quarter-night,
Shal falle a reyn and that so wilde and wood,
That half so greet was never Noes flood.'"[162]
Such predictions as this were, however, by no means always believed in
even by uneducated people. In this case, for the purposes of the story,
the flood does not take place. The carpenter, John, is taken in because
the story requires it, but Nicholas is a quack pure and simple, and of
course the Miller who tells the story has no delusions.
In _Troilus and Criseyde_ we are told that the moon's conjunction with
Jupiter and Saturn caused a heavy rain. Pandarus had the day before
suspected that there was to be rain from the condition of the moon:
"Right sone upon the chaunging of the mone,
Whan lightles is the world a night or tweyne,
And that the welken shoop him for to reyne,
He streight a-morwe un-to his nece wente;"[163]
and on the next night the rain came:
"The bente mone with hir hornes pale,
Saturne, and Iove, in Cancro ioyned were,
That swich a rayn from hevene gan avale,
That every maner womman that was there
Hadde of that smoky reyn a verray fere;"[164]
Perhaps the moon alone in Cancer, which was her mansion, would have caused
a rain, and it was the additional presence of Saturn and Jupiter that made
it such a heavy downpour.
Chaucer humorously makes use of this astrological superstition that the
planets cause rains in the _Lenvoy a Scogan_:
"To-broken been the statuts hye in hevene
That creat were eternally to dure,
Sith that I see the brighte goddes sevene
Mow wepe and wayle, and passioun endure,
As may in erthe a mortal creature.
Allas, fro whennes may this thing procede?
Of whiche errour I deye almost for drede."[165]
Here it is not the planets' positions that cause the rain, but the planets
are weeping as mortals do and their tears are the rain. In the next stanza
we learn that even Venus, from whose sphere divine law once decreed no
tear should ever fall, is weeping so that mortals are about to be
drenched. And it is all Scogan's fault!
"By worde eterne whylom was hit shape
That fro the fifte cercle, in no manere,
Ne mighte a drope of teres doun escape.
But now so wepeth Venus in hir spere,
That with hir teres she wol drenche us here.
Allas! Scogan! this is for thyn offence!
Thou causest this deluge of pestilence."[166]
So the ultimate cause of the rain was Scogan's offense. And in the next
stanza we learn what that offence was. Instead of vowing to serve his lady
forever, though his love is unrequited, Scogan has rebelled against the
law of love:
"Hast thou not seyd, in blaspheme of this goddes,
Through pryde, or through thy grete rakelnesse,
Swich thing as in the lawe of love forbode is?
That, for thy lady saw nat thy distresse,
Therefor thou yave hir up at Michelmesse!"[167]
I have said that Chaucer makes wide use of the astrological beliefs of his
century in portraying character and have shown how some of the strange
astrological ideas of the people of his time are reflected in Chaucer's
poetry. It remains to consider somewhat more closely the relations between
astrological faith and conduct, and Chaucer's application of these
relations to the dramatic action in his poems.
The inevitable logical outcome of astrological faith is the doctrine of
Necessity. The invariability of the celestial motions suggested to early
astrologers that there must be a higher power transcending and controlling
them, and this power could be none other than Necessity. But, since the
stars by their movements and positions were the regulators of mundane
events and human affairs, it followed that human destiny on the earth was
also under the sway of this relentless power of Necessity or Fate. Now it
was the Stoics alone who developed a thorough-going fatalism and at the
same time made it consistent with practical life and virtue. They taught
that man could best find himself in complete submission to the divine law
of destiny. The early Babylonian astrologers who originated the doctrine
of necessity did not develop it to its logical consequences. Reasoning
from certain very unusual occurrences that sometimes took place in the
heavens, such as the appearance of comets, meteors and falling stars, they
reached the conclusion that divine will at times arbitrarily interfered in
the destined course of nature. So priests foretold future events from the
configuration of the heavens, but professed ability to ward off threatened
evils by spells and incantations, or, by purifications and sacrifices, to
make the promised blessings more secure.
Now the fatalism of Chaucer's characters is something like this. The
general belief in the determination of human destiny by Fortune or
Necessity is present and is expressed usually at moments of deep despair,
when the longings of the heart and the struggles of the will have been
relentlessly thwarted. When the Trojans decree that Criseyde must go to
the Greeks in exchange for Antenor, Troilus pleads with Fortune:
"Than seyde he thus, 'Fortune! allas the whyle!
What have I doon, what have I thus a-gilt?
How mightestow for reuthe me bigyle?
Is ther no grace, and shall I thus be spilt?
Shal thus Criseyde awey, for that thou wilt?
Allas! how maystow in thyn herte finde
To been to me thus cruel and unkinde?
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Allas! Fortune! if that my lyf in Ioye
Displesed hadde un-to thy foule envye,
Why ne haddestow my fader, king of Troye,
By-raft the lyf, or doon my bretheren dye,
Or slayn my-self, that thus compleyne and crye,
I, combre-world, that may of no-thing serve,
But ever dye, and never fulle sterve?'"[168]
But there is present, too, in spite of all obstacles and defeats, an
undying hope that somehow--by prayers and sacrifices to the celestial
powers, or by the choice of astrologically favorable times of doing
things--that somehow the course of human lives, mapped out at birth by the
stars under the control of relentless destiny, may be altered. So the
characters in Chaucer's poems pray to the orbs of the sky to help in their
undertakings. The love-lorn Troilus undertakes scarcely a single act
without first beseeching some one of the celestial powers for help. When
he has confessed his love to Pandarus and the latter has promised to help
him, Troilus prays to Venus:
"'Now blisful Venus helpe, er that I sterve,
Of thee, Pandare, I may som thank deserve.'"[169]
and when the first step has been taken and he knows that Criseyde is not
ill disposed to be his friend at least, he praises Venus, looking up to
her as a flower to the sun:
"But right as floures, thorugh the colde of night
Y-closed, stoupen on hir stalkes lowe,
Redressen hem a-yein the sonne bright,
And spreden on hir kinde cours by rowe;
Right so gan tho his eyen up to throwe
This Troilus, and seyde, 'O Venus dere,
Thy might, thy grace, y-heried be it here!'"[170]
When Troilus is about to undertake a step that will either win or lose
Criseyde he prays to all the planetary gods, but especially to Venus,
begging her to overcome by her aid whatever evil influences the planets
exercised over him in his birth:
"'Yit blisful Venus, this night thou me enspyre,'
Quod Troilus, 'as wis as I thee serve,
And ever bet and bet shal, til I sterve.
And if I hadde, O Venus ful of murthe,
Aspectes badde of Mars or of Saturne,
Or thou combust[171] or let were in my birthe,
Thy fader prey al thilke harm disturne.'"[172]
Troilus does not forget to praise Venus when Criseyde is won at last:
"Than seyde he thus, 'O, Love, O, Charitee,
Thy moder eek, Citherea the swete,
After thy-self next heried be she,
Venus mene I, the wel-willy planete;'"[173]
And after Criseyde has gone away to the Greeks, it is to Venus still that
the lover utters his lament and prayer, saying that without the guidance
of her beams he is lost:
"'O sterre, of which I lost have al the light,
With herte soor wel oughte I to bewayle,
That ever derk in torment, night by night,
Toward my deeth with wind in stere I sayle;
For which the tenthe night if that I fayle
The gyding of thy bemes brighte an houre,
My ship and me Caribdis wol devoure:'"[174]
Another effect of astrological faith on conduct was the choice of times
for doing things of importance with reference to astrological conditions.
When a man wished to set out on any enterprise of importance he very often
consulted the positions of the stars to see if the time was propitious.
Thus in the _Squieres Tale_ it is said that the maker of the horse of
brass
"wayted many a constellacioun,
Er he had doon this operacioun;"[175]
that is, he waited carefully for the moment when the stars would be in the
most propitious position, so that his undertaking would have the greatest
possible chance of success. Pandarus goes to his niece Criseyde to plead
for Troilus at a time when the moon is favorably situated in the heavens:
"And gan to calle, and dresse him up to ryse,
Remembringe him his erand was to done
From Troilus, and eek his greet empryse;
And caste and knew in good plyt was the mone--
To doon viage, and took his wey ful sone
Un-to his neces paleys ther bi-syde."[176]
The kind of fatalism that Chaucer's characters, as a rule, represent is
well illustrated in the story of Palamon and Arcite, told by the Knight in
the _Canterbury Tales_. These two young nobles of Thebes, cousins by
relationship, are captured by Theseus, king of Athens, and imprisoned in
the tower of his palace. From the window of the tower Palamon espies the
king's beautiful sister Emelye walking in the garden and instantly falls
in love. Arcite, seeing his cousin's sudden pallor and hearing his
exclamation which, Chaucer says, sounded
"As though he stongen were un-to the herte."[177]
thinks that Palamon is complaining because of his imprisonment and urges
him to bear in patience the decree of the heavens:
"'For Goddes love, tak al in pacience
Our prisoun, for it may non other be;
Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee.
Som wikke aspect or disposicioun
Of Saturne, by sum constellacioun,
Hath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn;
So stood the heven whan that we were born;
We moste endure it; this is the short and pleyn.'"[178]
This is the doctrine of Necessity, and it suggests the Stoic virtue of
submission to fate; yet Arcite's attitude toword his misfortune is not
truly stoic, for there is none of that joy in submission here that the
Stoic felt in surrendering himself to the will of the powers above. Arcite
would resist fate if he could.
Palamon explains the cause of his woe and when Arcite looks out and sees
Emelye he too falls a victim to love. Then Palamon knits his brows in
righteous indignation. Did he not love the beautiful lady first and trust
his secret to his cousin and sworn brother? And was it not Arcite's duty
and solemn pledge to help and not hinder him in his love? Arcite's defence
shows that the fatalism that dominates his thought is a fatalism that
excuses him for doing as he pleases: Love knows no law, but is a law unto
itself. Therefore he must needs love Emelye.
"Wostow nat wel the olde clerkes sawe,
That 'who shal yeve a lover any lawe?'
Love is a gretter lawe, by my pan,
Than may be yeve to any erthly man.
And therefore positif lawe and swich decree
Is broke al-day for love, in ech degree.
A man moot nedes love, maugree his heed."[179]
When Arcite is released from prison but banished from Athens with the
threat of death should he return, both men are utterly unhappy, Arcite,
because he can no longer see Emelye, and Palamon because he fears that
Arcite will return to Athens with a band of kinsmen to aid him, and carry
off Emelye by force. After Arcite has gone Palamon reproaches the gods for
determining the destiny of men so irrevocably without consulting their
wishes or their deserts:
"'O cruel goddes, that governe
This world with binding of your word eterne,
And wryten in the table of athamaunt
Your parlement, and your eterne graunt,
What is mankinde more un-to yow holde
Than is the sheep, that rouketh in the folde?'"[180]
Many a man, Palamon says, suffers sickness, imprisonment and other
misfortunes unjustly because of the inexorable destiny imposed upon him by
the gods. Even the lot of the beasts is better, for they do as they will
and have nothing to suffer for it after death; whereas man must suffer
both in this life and the next. This, surely, is not willing submission to
fate.
After some years Palamon escapes from prison and encounters Arcite, who
has returned in disguise and become Theseus' chief squire. They arrange to
settle their differences by a duel next day. But destiny was guiding
Theseus' conduct too, so the narrator of the story says, and was so
powerful that it caused a coincidence that might not happen again in a
thousand years:
"The destinee, ministre general,
That executeth in the world over-al
The purveyaunce, that God hath seyn biforn,
So strong it is, that, though the world had sworn
The contrarie of a thing, by ye or nay,
Yet somtyme it shal fallen on a day
That falleth nat eft with-inne a thousand yere.
For certeinly, our appetytes here,
Be it of werre, or pees, or hate, or love,
Al is this reuled by the sighte above."[181]
Theseus goes hunting and with him, the queen and Emelye. They of course
interrupt the duel between Palamon and Arcite. Through the intercession of
the two women the duelists are pardoned and it is arranged that they
settle their dispute by a tournament set for about a year later.
On the morning before the tournament Palamon, Arcite, and Emelye all go,
at different hours, to pray and sacrifice to their respective patron
deities. The times of their prayers are chosen according to astrological
considerations, each going to pray in the hour[182] that was considered
sacred to the planet with which his patron deity was identified. Palamon
prays to Venus only that he may win his love, whether by victory or defeat
in the tournament makes no difference to him. After his sacrifices are
completed, the statute of Venus shakes and Palamon, regarding this as a
favorable sign goes away with glad heart. Arcite prays Mars for victory
and is answered by a portent even more favorable than that given to
Palamon. Not only does the statue of Mars tremble so that his coat of mail
resounds, but the very doors of the temple shake, the fire on the altar
burns more brightly and Arcite hears the word "Victory" uttered in a low
dim murmur. Emelye does not want to be given in marriage to any man and so
she prays to Diana[183], as the protectress of maidenhood, to keep her a
maid. Diana, the goddess, appears in her characteristic form as a huntress
and tells Emelye that the gods have decreed her marriage either to Palamon
or to Arcite, but that it cannot yet be revealed to which one she is to be
given.
But now there is trouble in heaven. Venus has promised that Palamon shall
have his love, and Mars has promised Arcite the victory. How are both
promises to be fulfilled? Chaucer humorously expresses the dilemma thus:
"And richt anon swich stryf ther is bigonne
For thilke graunting, in the hevene above,
Bitwixe Venus, the goddesse of love,
And Mars, the sterne god armipotente,
That Iupiter was bisy it to stente;
Til that the pale Saturnus the colde,
That knew so manye of aventures olde,
Fond in his old experience an art,
That he ful sone hath plesed every part."[184]
We had almost forgotten that all the gods to whom prayers have been
uttered and sacrifices offered were anything more than pagan gods. But
now, by the reference to Saturn, "the pale Saturnus the colde" suggesting
the dimness of his appearance in the sky, we are reminded that these gods
are also planets.
But, to resume the story, Saturn finds the remedy for the embarrassing
situation. He rehearses his powers and then tells Venus that her knight
shall have his lady, but that Mars shall be able to help his knight also.
"'My dere doghter Venus,' quod Saturne,
'My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne,
Hath more power that wot any man.
. . . . . . . .
Now weep namore, I shal doon diligence
That Palamon, that is thyn owne knight,
Shal have his lady, as thou hast him hight.
Though Mars shal helpe his knight, yet nathelees
Bitwixe yow ther moot be som tyme pees,
Al be ye noght of o complexioun,
That causeth al day swich divisioun.'"[185]
When the appointed time for the tourney arrives, in order that no means of
securing the god's favor and so assuring success may be left untried,
Arcite, with his knights, enters through the gate of Mars, his patron
deity, and Palamon through that of Venus. Palamon is defeated in the fight
but Saturn fulfills his promise to Venus by inducing Pluto to send an omen
which frightens Arcite's horse causing an accident in which Arcite is
mortally injured. In the end Palamon wins Emelye.
Although the scene of this story is laid in ancient Athens, the characters
are plainly mediaeval knights and ladies. Throughout the poem, as in many
of Chaucer's writings, there is a curious mingling of pagan and Christian
elements, a strange juxtaposition of astrological notions, Greek
anthropomorphism and mediaeval Christian philosophy. But pervading the
whole is the idea of determinism, of the inability of the human will to
struggle successfully against the destiny imposed by the powers of heaven,
or against the capricious wills of the gods.
Chaucer had too keen a sense of humor, too sympathetic an outlook on life
not to see the irony in the ceaseless spectacle of mankind dashing itself
against the relentless wall of circumstances, fate, or what you will, in
undying hope of attaining the unattainable. He saw the humor in this
maelstrom of human endeavor--and he saw the tragedy too. The _Knightes
Tale_ presents largely, I think, the humorous side of it, _Troilus and
Criseyde_, the tragic, although there is some tragedy in the _Knightes
Tale_ and some comedy in _Troilus_.
It was fate that Troilus should love Criseyde, that he should win her love
for a time, and that in the end he should be deserted by her. From the
very first line of the poem we know that he is doomed to sorrow:
"The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen
Fro we to wele, and after out of Ioye,
My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye."[186]
The tragedy of Troilus is also the tragedy of Criseyde, for even at the
moment of forsaking Troilus for Diomede she is deeply unhappy over her
unfaithfulness; but circumstance is as much to blame as her own yielding
nature, for Troilus' fate is bound up with the inexorable doom of Troy,
and she could not return to him if she would.
There is no doubt that Chaucer feels the tragedy of the story as he
writes. In his proem to the first book he invokes one of the furies to aid
him in his task:
"Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte
Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte!"[187]
Throughout the poem he disclaims responsibility for what he narrates,
saying that he is simply following his author and that, once begun,
somehow he must keep on. In the proem to the second book he says:
"Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame
Of al this werk, but pray you mekely,
Disblameth me, if any word be lame,
For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I."[188]
and concludes the proem with the words,--
"but sin I have begonne,
Myn auctor shal I folwen, if I conne."[189]
When Fortune turns her face away from Troilus, and Chaucer must tell of
the loss of Criseyde his heart bleeds and his pen trembles with dread of
what he must write:
"But al to litel, weylawey the whyle,
Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune!
That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle,
And can to foles so hir song entune,
That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune;
And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe,
Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe.
From Troilus she gan hir brighte face
Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede,
But caste him clene oute of his lady grace,
And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede;
For which right now myn herte ginneth blede,
And now my penne, allas! with which I wryte,
Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte."[190]
Chaucer tells of Criseyde's faithlessness reluctantly, reminding the
reader often that so the story has it:
"And after this the story telleth us,
That she him yaf the faire baye stede,
The which she ones wan of Troilus;
And eek a broche (and that was litel nede)
That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede.
And eek, the bet from sorwe him to releve,
She made him were a pencel of hir sleve.
I finde eek in the stories elles-where,
Whan through the body hurt was Diomede
Of Troilus, tho weep she many a tere,
Whan that she saugh his wyde woundes blede;
And that he took to kepen him good hede,
And for to hele him of his sorwes smerte,
Men seyn, I not, that she yaf him hir herte."[191]
And in the end for very pity he tries to excuse her:
"Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde
Ferther than the story wol devyse,
Hir name, allas! is publisshed so wyde,
That for hir gilt it oughte y-now suffyse.
And if I mighte excuse hir any wyse,
For she so sory was for hir untrouthe,
Y-wis, I wolde excuse hir yet for routhe."[192]
We have said that Chaucer's attitude toward the philosophical aspects of
astrology is hard to determine because in most of his poems he takes an
impersonal ironic point of view towards the actions he describes or the
ideas he presents. His attitude toward the idea of destiny is not so hard
to determine. Fortune, the executrix of the fates through the influence of
the heavens rules men's lives; they are the herdsmen, we are their flocks:
"But O, Fortune, executrice of wierdes,
O influences of thise hevenes hye!
Soth is, that, under god, ye ben our hierdes,
Though to us bestes been the causes wrye."[193]
Perhaps Chaucer did not mean this literally. But one is tempted to think
that he, like Dante, thought of the heavenly bodies in their spheres as
the ministers and instruments of a Providence that had foreseen and
ordained all things.