Thursday, July 25, 2013

Time's up!

The progress of time, for medieval man, was a grand circle called the Great Year. This concept of time begins with Creation and ends with Judgment. An assumption in the Middle Ages was that Creation happened in March. Chaucer alludes to this fact in one of the tales.

When the month in which the world began,
That was called March, God first made man.

Regarding the end of Time, two prophecies are incorporated into the Canterbury plan. Both associate with the zodiac--either directly or in a roundabout way.  One comes from Albumasar, an astrologer/philosopher whose works had been well known in Europe from the 12th century. The second is found in Sir John Mandeville's account of his travels, which had great popularity beginning in the mid-1300s.
     As an astrologer, Albumasar is best known for his theory (a contrast to Christian Creation) that the universe formed in the first degree of Aries (the first sign), and will end in the last degree of Pisces (the 12th sign). Chaucer, appropriately, begins the General Prologue in Aries when the young sun, Hath in the Ram his half course run.
     And at the end of the Tales, at the last of the Tales, where are we? The introduction to the last tale says:

The sun from the south line was descended
So low that he was not even, to my sight
Degrees nine and twenty in height.

Nine and twenty degrees is almost 30º; but thirty is neater, a simple round figure. As Rodney Delasanta expresses it, "Chaucer has written straight with crooked lines." There must be a significance to twenty-nine. There is. It takes 30º to pass through a zodiacal sign. It's not the twenty-nine degrees that are important--it's the one degree that remains!
     Chaucer declares we've heard from all the signs (Pilgrims) but one. That means we are almost at the beginning again, almost at Aries. And that puts us in the last degree of Pisces! According to Albumasar, Time is up! Judgment--the world's end--is imminent.
     But Chaucer unexpectedly adds Libra, the Scales, to the scene. Often used as an apocalyptic image, it reinforces that Judgment is at hand. Then he also makes an odd association: The moon's exaltation, I mean Libra, had begun ascending. That is taken to be a "mistake." Astrologically speaking, Libra is not the moon's exaltation. Chaucer knew that. So, what is he communicating? Scholar Dorothy Everett cautions, "However incongruous some things may appear to be, it would be dangerous to assume that Chaucer introduced them without good reason."
     The "good reason" here brings us to Mandeville's prophecy: "The doom (Judgment) shall be on Easter Day." When Chaucer speaks of the moon's exaltation, the time when it exerts its greatest astrological influence, it doesn't ring true. But, putting astrology aside, what if we picture the moon's visual exaltation--the full moon?
      Libra, then, takes on a second function. We have said it confirms Judgment. Now, in this setting, when we see the Scales as a Balance, it indicates equal day and night--the spring equinox. That is significant because to determine the date of Easter, it is the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. And Easter brings Judgment. There is need to make haste.
     Then what happens to the return journey?

No comments:

Post a Comment