415. _astronomye_, (really) astrology. See Saunders on Chaucer, p. 111;
Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840), ii. 202.
415, 416. _kepte_, watched. The _houres_ are the astrological hours. He
carefully watched for a favourable star in the ascendant. 'A great portion
of the medical science of the middle ages depended upon astrological and
other superstitious observances.'--Wright. 'A Phisition must take heede and
aduise him of a certaine thing, that _fayleth not, nor deceiueth_, the
which thing Astronomers of Ægypt taught, that by coniunction of the bodye
of the Moone with sterres fortunate, commeth dreadful sicknesse to good
end: and with contrary Planets falleth the contrary, that is, to euill
ende'; &c.--Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29. Precisely the same
sort of thing was in vogue much later, viz. in 1578; see Bullein's Dialogue
against the Feuer Pestilence (E. E. T. S.), p. 32.
416. _magik naturel._ Chaucer alludes to the same practices in the House of
Fame, 1259-70 (vol. iii. p. 38):--
'Ther saugh I pleyen Iogelours
. . . . . .
And clerkes eek, which conne wel
Al this _magyke naturel_,
That craftely don hir ententes
To make, _in certeyn ascendentes_,
Images, lo! through which magyk
To make a man ben hool or syk.'
417. The _ascendent_ is the point of the zodiacal circle which happens to
be ascending above the horizon at a given moment, such as the moment of
birth. Upon it depended the drawing out of a man's horoscope, which
represented the aspect of the heavens at some given critical moment. The
moment, in the present case, is that for making images. It was believed
that images of men and animals could be made of certain substances and _at
certain times_, and could be so treated as to cause good or evil to a
patient, by means of magical and planetary influences. See Cornelius
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35-47. The sense is--'He
knew well how to choose a fortunate ascendant for treating images, to be
used as charms to help the patient.'
'With Astrologie joyne elements also,
To _fortune_ their Workings as theie go.'
Norton's Ordinall, in Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum, p. 60.
420. These are the _four_ elementary qualities, hot, cold, dry, moist; [41]
Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 898. Diseases were supposed to be caused by an undue
excess of some one quality; and the mixture of prevalent qualities in a
man's body determined his complexion or temperament. Thus the _sanguine_
man was thought to be hot and moist; the _phlegmatic_, cold and moist; the
_choleric_, hot and dry; the _melancholy_, cold and dry. The whole system
rested on the teaching of Galen, and was fundamentally wrong, as it assumed
that the 'elements,' or 'simple bodies,' were four, viz. earth, air, fire,
and water. Of these, earth was said to be cold and dry; water, cold and
moist; air, hot and moist; and fire, hot and dry. They thus correspond to
the four complexions, viz. melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric.
Each principal part of the body, as the brain, heart, liver, stomach, &c.,
could be 'distempered,' and such distemperance could be either 'simple' or
'compound.' Thus a simple distemperature of the brain might be 'an excess
of heat'; a compound one, 'an excess of heat and moisture.' See the whole
system explained in Sir Thos. Elyot's Castel of Helthe; at the beginning.