Part 7 (1/2)
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 G.o.ds, 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-w.i.l.l.y 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 s.h.i.+p 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 bra.s.s
”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]