Astrological Lore in Chaucer

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.

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