Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookante, Purg. xviii. 28, which Cary thus translates:-- 'Then, as the fire points up, and mounting seeks His birth-place and his lasting seat,' &c. 745. _At his large_, unrestrained, free to move. Cf. _at thy large_, Cant. Ta., A 1283, 1292. 746. _Charge_, a heavy weight, opposed to _light thing_. The verb _seke_ is understood from l. 744. 'A light thing (seeks to go) up, and a weight (tends) downwards.' In Tyrwhitt's glossary, the word _charge_, in this passage, is described as being a verb, with the sense 'to weigh, to incline on account of weight.' How this can be made to suit the context, I cannot understand. _Charge_ occurs as a sb. several times in Chaucer, but chiefly with the secondary sense of 'importance'; see Kn. Tale, A 1284, 2287; Can. Yem. Ta., G 749. In the Clerkes Tale, E 163, it means 'weight,' nearly as here. 750. _Skilles_, reasons. The above 'reasons' prove nothing whatever as regards the fish in the sea, or the trees in the earth; but the eagle's mode of reasoning must not be too closely enquired into. The fault is not Chaucer's, but arises from the extremely imperfect state of science in the middle ages. Chaucer had to accept the usual account of the four elements, disposed, according to their weight, in four layers; earth being at the bottom, then water, then air, and lastly fire above the air. See the whole scheme in Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. vii.; ed. Pauli, ii. 104: or Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 134. 752. See Chaucer's tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 11, l. 72. Hence Boethius is one of the 'clerkes' referred to in l. 760. 759. Dante mentions these two; Inf. iv. 131-4. 765. So also in Cant. Tales, D 2233:-- 'every soun Nis but of eir reverberacioun, And ever it wasteth lyte and lyte awey.' The theory of sound is treated of in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, lib. iv. c. 14. The ancients seem to have understood that sound is due to the vibration of the air; see ll. 775, 779. Thus, in the treatise by Boethius, De Musica (to which Chaucer expressly refers in Non. Preest. Tale, B 4484), lib. i. c. 3, I find:--'Sonus vero præter quendam pulsum percussionemque non redditur.... Idcirco definitur sonus, aeris percussio indissoluta usque ad auditum.' 788. _Experience_, i.e. experiment. The illustration is a good one; I have no doubt that it is obtained, directly or at secondhand, from Boethius. Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Nat. lib. xxv. c. 58, says:--'Ad quod demonstrandum inducit idem Boetius tale exemplum: Lapis proiectus in medio stagni facit breuissimum circulum, et ille alium, et hoc fit donec vel ad ripas peruenerit vel impetus defecerit.' This merely gives the substance of what he says; it will be of interest to quote the original passage, from the treatise De Musica, lib. i. c. 14, which chapter I quote in full:-- 'Nunc quis modus sit audiendi disseramus. Tale enim quiddam fieri consuevit in uocibus, quale cum paludibus uel quietis aquis iactum eminus mergitur saxum. Prius enim in paruissimum orbem undam colligit, deinde maioribus orbibus, undarum globos spargit, atque eo usque dum fatigatus motus ab eliciendis fluctibus conquiescat. Semperque posterior et maior undula pulsu debiliori diffunditur. Quod si quid sit, quod crescentes undulas possit offendere, statim motus ille reuertitur, et quasi ad centrum, unde profectus fuerat, eisdem undulis rotundatur. Ita igitur cum aer pulsus fecerit sonum, pellit alium proximum, et quodammodo rotundum fluctum aeris ciet. Itaque diffunditur et omnium circunstantium (_sic_) simul ferit auditum, atque illi est obscurior uox, qui longius steterit, quoniam ad eum debilior pulsi aeris unda peruenit.' 792. _Covercle_, a pot-lid. Cotgrave cites the proverb--'_Tel pot tel couvercle_, Such pot, such potlid, like master, like man.' 794. _Wheel_ must have been glossed by _cercle_ (circle) in an early copy; hence MSS. F. and B. have the reading--'That whele sercle wol cause another whele,' where the gloss has crept into the text. 798. _Roundel_, a very small circle; _compas_, a very large circle. _Roundel_ is still a general term for a small circular charge in heraldry; if _or_ (golden), it is called a _bezant_; if _argent_ (white), it is called a _plate_; and so on. In the Sec. Non. Tale, G 45, _compas_ includes the whole world. 801. _Multiplying_, increasing in size. 805. 'Where you do not observe the motion above, it is still going on underneath.' This seems to allude to some false notion as to a transmission of motion below the surface. 808. This is an easy way of getting over a difficulty. It is no easy task to prove the contrary of every false theory! 811. _An air aboute_, i.e. a surrounding layer, or hollow sphere, of air. 822. I would rather 'take it in game'; and so I accept it. 826. _Fele_, experience, understand by experiment. 827. I here take the considerable liberty of reading _the mansioun_, by comparison with l. 831. Those who prefer to read _sum place stide_, or _som styde_, or _some stede_, can do so! The sense intended is obviously--'And that the dwelling-place, to which each thing is inclined to resort, has its own natural stead,' i.e. position. Fishes, for example, naturally exist in _water_; the trees, upon the _earth_; and sounds, in the _air_; water, earth, air, and fire being the four 'elements.' Cf. the phrase--'to be in his _element_.' 836. _Out of_, i.e. not in; answering to l. 838. 846. Referring to Ovid's description, Met. xii. 39, 40. 'Orbe locus medio est inter terrasque fretumque Coelestesque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi.' I suspect that Ovid's _triplicis confinia mundi_ is the origin of Chaucer's phrase _tryne compas_, in Sec. Non. Tale, G 45. 857. The 'terms of philosophy' are all fully and remorselessly given by Gower, Conf. Amant. bk. vii. 861. It is remarkable that Chaucer, some years later, repeated almost the same thing in the Prologue to his Treatise on the Astrolabe, in somewhat different words, viz. 'curious endyting and hard sentence is full hevy atones for swich a child to lerne'; l. 32. 866. _Lewedly_, in unlearned fashion; in his Astrolabe, l. 43, Chaucer says he is 'but a _lewd_ compilatour of the labour of olde Astrologiens.' 868. The eagle characteristically says that his reasons are so 'palpable,' that they can be shaken by the _bills_, as men shake others by the hand. It is perhaps worth adding that the word _bill_ was too vulgar and familiar to be applied to a hawk, which had only a _beak_ (the French term, whereas _bill_ is the A.S. _bile_). 'Ye shall say, this hauke has a large _beke_, or a shortt beke; and call it not _bille_'; Book of St. Alban's, fol. a 6, back. The eagle purposely employs the more familiar term. 873. Chaucer meekly allows that the eagle's explanation is a _likely_ one. He was not in a comfortable position for contradiction in argument, and so took a wiser course. The eagle resents this mild admission, and says he will soon find out the truth, 'top, and tail, and every bit.' He then ease |