316 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 78. 



But because Tyi'whitt, who, although an excel- 

 lent literary crhic, was by no means an acute 

 reader of his author's meaninir, was incapable of 

 appreciating the admirable combination of physical 

 facts by which Chaucer has not only identified 

 the real day of the pilgrimage, but has placed it, 

 as it were, beyond the danger of alteration by any 

 j)0,-isible corruption in the text, he set aside tliese 

 physical facts altogether, and took in lieu of them 

 the seventh and eighth lines of the prologue 

 quoted above, which, I contend, Chaucer did not 

 intend to bear any reference to the day of the 

 journey itself, but only to the general season in 

 which it was undertaken. 



But Tyrwhitt, having seized upon a favourite 

 idea, seems to have been determined to curry it 

 through at any cost, even at that of altering the 

 text from " the Ram " into " the Bull : " and I fear 

 that he can scarcely be acquitted of unfair and 

 intentional misquotation of Chaucer's words, by 

 transposing " his halfe cours " into " half his 

 course," which is by no means an equivalent ex- 

 pression. Here are his own words : 



" When be (Chancer) tells >is that ' the shoures of 

 April had perced to the rote the drought of March ' 

 (ver. 1, 2.), we must suppose, in order to allow due 

 time for such an operation, that April was far advanced ; 

 while, on the other hand, the place of the sun, 'having 

 just run half his course in the Ram' (ver. 7, 8.), restrains 

 us to some day in the very latter end of March This 

 difficulty may, ami, I think, should, be removed hy 

 reading in ver. S. the Bull, instead of the Ram. All 

 the parts of the description will then be consistent with 

 themselves, and whh another passage (vcr. 4-125.), 

 where, in the best MSS., the eiyhle and tiventy day of 

 April is named as the day of the journey to Canter- 

 bury." — Introductory Discourse. 



Accordingly, Mr. Tyrwhitt did not hesitate to 

 adopt in his text the twenty-eighth of April as 

 the true date, without sto])ping to examine 

 whether that day would, or would not, be con- 

 sistent with the subsequent phenomena related by 

 Chaucer. 



Notwithstanding Tyrwhitt's assertion of a diffi- 

 culty only removable by changing the Ram into 

 the Bull, there are no less than two ways (>f under- 

 standing the seventh and eighth lines of the pro- 

 logue so as to be perfectly in accordance with the 

 rest of the description. One of tliese would be to 

 suppose the sign Aries divided into two portions 

 (not necessarily equal in the phraseology of the 

 time), one of which would appertain to March, 

 and the other to April — and that Chaucer, by the 

 " halfe cours yronne," meant the la.it^ or the April, 

 half of the sign Aries. But I think a more pro- 

 bable supposition still would be to imagine the 

 month of April, of which Chaucer was s[)enking. 

 to be divided into two " halfe cours," in one of 

 which the sun would be in Aries, and in the other 

 in Taurus; and that when Chaucer says that 



" the yonge Sonne had in the Ram his halfe cours 

 yronne," lie meant that the Aries half of the month 

 o/ April had been run through, thereby indicating 

 in general terms some time approaching to the 

 midille of April. 



Both methods of explaining the phrase lead 

 eventually to the same result, which is also iden- 

 tical with the interpretation of Chaucer's own 

 contemporaries, as appears in its imitation by 

 Ly<lgate in the opening of his "Story of Thebes:" 



" Wh.in bright Phebus passed was the Ram, 

 Midde of Apiill, and into the Bull came." 



And it is by no means the least remarkalile in- 

 stance of want of perception in Tyrwhitt, that he 

 actually cites these two lines of Lydgate's as cor- 

 roborative of his own interpreiution, which places 

 the sun in the middle of Tau?ns. 



I enter into this expUmation, not that I think 

 it necessary to examine too curiously into the 

 consistency of an expression which evidently was 

 intended only in a general sense, but that the 

 groundlessness of Tyrwhitt's alleged necessity lor 

 the alteration of "the Ram" into "the Bull" 

 might more clearly appear. 



1 have said that Tyrwhitt was not a comjietent 

 critic of Chaucer's practical science, and I may 

 ])erhaps be expected to jjoiiit out some other 

 instaiu'C of his failure in tiiut respect than is 

 afforded by the subject itself. This I may do by 

 reference to a passage in "The Marchante's Tale," 

 which evinces a remarkable want of perception 

 not only in Tyrwhitt, but in all the editors of 

 Chaucer that I have had an ojiporl unity of con- 

 sulting. 



The morning of the garden scene is said in the 

 text to be "er that dayes eight were passed of the 

 month of Jnil" — but, a little furtiier on, the 

 same day is thus described : 



" Bright was the day and blew the firmament, 

 Phebus of gold his stremes doun hath sent 

 To gladen every flour with his warninesse; 

 He was that time in Geminis, I gesse. 

 But litel fi'o his declination 

 In Cancer." 



How is it possible that any per.son could read 

 these lines and not be struck at once with the 

 fact that they refer to the 8th of June and not to 

 the 8th lit July ? The sun would leave Gemini 

 and enter Cancer tm the 12th of June ; Chaucer 

 was describing the 8tli, and with his usual accuracy 

 he ])laces the sun "but litel fro" the summer 

 solstice ! 



Since " Juil " is an error common perhaps to 

 all previous editions, Tyrwhitt might have been 

 excused for repeating it, if he had been satisfied 

 with only that : but he must signalise his edition 

 by inserting in the Glossary attached to it — 

 "Juil, the month of July," referring, as the sole 



