_The Star Min Al Auwâ._
"Adam Scrivener, if ever it thee befall Boece, or Troilus, for to
write newe, Under thy long locks thou mayst have the scull But, after
my making, thou write more trew; So oft a day I mote thy worke renew,
It to correct, and eke to rubbe and scrape, And all thorow thy
negligence and rape."
_Chaucer to his own Scrivener._
If, during his own lifetime, and under his own eye, poor Chaucer was so
sinned against as to provoke this humorous malediction upon the head of
the delinquent, it cannot be a matter of surprise that, in the various
hands his text has since passed through, many expressions should have
been perverted, and certain passages wholly misunderstood. And when we
find men, of excellent judgment in other respects, proposing, as
Tyrwhitt did, to alter Chaucer's words to suit their own imperfect
comprehension of his meaning, it is only reasonable to suspect that
similar mistakes may have induced early transcribers to alter the text,
wherever, to their wisdom, it may have seemed expedient.
Now I know of no passage more likely to have been tampered with in this
way, than those lines of the prologue to the _Persone's Tale_, alluded
to at the close of my last communication. Because, supposing (which I
shall afterwards endeavour to prove) that Chaucer really meant to write
something to this effect: "Thereupon, as we were entering a town, the
moon's rising, with Min al auwâ in Libra, began to ascend (or to become
visible),"--and supposing that his mode of expressing this had been,
"Therewith the mone's exaltacioun,
In libra men alawai gan ascende,
As we were entrying at a towne's end:"
--in such a case, what can be more probable than that some ignorant
transcriber, never perhaps dreaming of such a thing as the Arabic name
of a star, would endeavour _to make sense_ of these, to him, obscure
words, by converting them into English. The process of transition would
be easy; "min" or "men" requires little violence to become "mene" (the
modern "mean" with its many significations), and "al auwâ" (or "alwai,"
as Chaucer would probably write it) is equally identical with "alway."
The misplacement of "Libra" might then follow as a seeming necessity;
and thus the line would assume its present form, leaving the reader to
understand it, either with Urry, as,
"I mene Libra, that is, I _refer to_ Libra;"
or with Tyrwhitt:
"In mene Libra, that is, In _the middle of_ Libra."
Now, to Urry's reading, it may be objected that it makes _the thing
ascending_ to be Libra, and does not of necessity imply the moon's
appearance above the horizon. But since the rising of the moon is a
_visible_ phenomenon, while that of Libra is theoretical, it must have
been _to the former_ Chaucer was alluding, as to something witnessed by
the whole party as they
"Were entrying at a towne's end;"
or otherwise this latter observation would have no meaning.
The objection to Tyrwhitt's reading is of a more technical nature--the
moon, if in _the middle_ of Libra, _could not_ be above the horizon, in
the neighbourhood of Canterbury, at four o'clock P. M., in the month of
April. Tyrwhitt, it is true, would probably smooth away the difficulty
by charging it as another inconsistency against his author; but I--and I
hope by this time such readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" as are interested
in the subject--have seen too many proofs of Chaucer's competency in
matters of science, and of his commentator's incompetency, to feel
disposed to concede to the latter such a convenient method of
interpretation.
But there is a third objection common to both readings--that they do not
satisfactorily account for the word "alway;" for although Tyrwhitt
endeavours to explain it by _continually_, "was _continually_
ascending," such a phrase is by no means intelligible when applied to a
single observation.
For myself, I can say that this word "alway" was, from the first, the
great difficulty with me--and the more I became convinced of the studied
meaning with which Chaucer chose his other expressions, the less
satisfied I was with this; and the more convinced I felt that the whole
line had been corrupted.
In advocating the restoration of the reading which I have already
suggested as the original meaning of Chaucer, I shall begin by
establishing the _probability_ of his having intended to mark the moon's
place by associating her rising with that of a known fixed star--a
method of noting phenomena frequently resorted to in ancient astronomy.
For that purpose I shall point out another instance wherein Chaucer
evidently intended an application of the same method for the purpose of
indicating a particular position of the heavens; but first it must
noted, that in alluding to the Zodiac, he always refers _to the signs_,
never to the constellations--in fact, he does not appear to recognise
the latter at all! Thus, in that palpable allusion to the precession of
the equinoxes, in the Frankeleine's Tale--
"He knew ful wel how fer Alnath was shove
From the hed of thilke fixe Aries above:"
--by _the hed of Aries_, Chaucer did not mean the os frontis of the Ram,
whereon Alnath still shines conspicuously, but the equinoctial point,
from which Alnath _was shove_ by the extent of a whole sign.
This being premised, I return to the indication of a point in the
ecliptic by the coincident rising of a star; and I contend that such was
plainly Chaucer's intention in those lines of the Squire's Tale wherein
King Cambuscan is described as rising from the feast:--
"Phebus hath left the angle meridional,
And yet ascending was the beste real,
The gentle Leon, _with his Aldryan_."
Which means that _the sign_ Leo was then in the horizon--the precise
degree being marked by the coincident rising of the star Aldryan.
Speght's explanation of "Aldryan," in which he has been copied by Urry
and Tyrwhitt, is--"a star in the neck of the Lion." What particular star
he may have meant by this, does not appear; nor am I at present within
reach of probable sources wherein his authority, if he had any, might be
searched for and examined; but I have learned to feel such confidence in
Chaucer's significance of description, that I have no hesitation in
assuming, until authority for a contrary inference shall be produced,
that by the star "Aldryan" he meant REGULUS, not the neck, but the
heart, of the Lion--
1st. Because it is the most remarkable star in the sign Leo.
2nd. Because it was, in Chaucer's time, as it now is, nearly upon the
line of the ecliptic.
3rd. Because its situation in longitude, about two-thirds in the sign
Leo, just tallies with Chaucer's expression "_yet_ ascending,"--that is,
one-third of the sign was still below the horizon.
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 ([Greek: beta]
Virginis) in the sign Virgo--the other ([Greek: delta] 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.