More primitive in origin than the harmony of the spheres are references to the four elements, to the divisions of the world, and to the cardinal points or quarters of the earth. Of these, probably the most primitive is the last. The idea of four cardinal points, the "before," the "behind," the "right," and the "left," later given the names North, South, East, and West, appears among peoples in their very earliest stages of civilization, and because of its great usefulness has remained and probably will remain throughout the history of the human race. Only one of Chaucer's many references to the cardinal points need be mentioned. In the _Man of Lawes Tale_ (B.491ff.) the cardinal points are first suggested by an allusion to the four 'spirits of tempest,' which were supposed to have their respective abodes in the four quarters of earth, and then specifically named in the lines following: "Who bad the foure spirits of tempest, That power han tanoyen land and see, 'Bothe north and south, and also west and est, Anoyeth neither see, ne land, ne tree?'" Of almost equal antiquity are ideas of the universe as a threefold world having heaven above, earth below, and a region of darkness and gloom beneath the earth. Chaucer usually speaks of the threefold world, the "tryne compas," as comprising heaven, earth and sea. Thus in the _Knightes Tale_:[21] "'O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene, To whom bothe hevene and erthe and see is sene, Quene of the regne of Pluto derk and lowe,'" Fame's palace is said to stand midway between heaven, earth and sea: "Hir paleys stant, as I shal seye, Right even in middes of the weye Betwixen hevene, erthe, and see;"[22] Again in _The Seconde Nonnes Tale_, the name 'tryne compas' is used of the threefold world and the three regions are mentioned: "That of the tryne compas lord and gyde is, Whom erthe and see and heven, out of relees, Ay herien;"[23] 4. _Heaven, Hell and Purgatory_ In mediaeval cosmology ideas of heaven, hell, and purgatory, as more or less definitely located regions where the spirits of the dead were either rewarded or punished eternally, or were purged of their earthly sins in hope of future blessedness, play an important part. According to Dante's poetic conception hell was a conical shaped pit whose apex reached to the center of the earth, purgatory was a mountain on the earth's surface on the summit of which was located the garden of Eden or the earthly paradise, and heaven was a motionless region beyond space and time, the motionless sphere outside of the _primum mobile_, called the Empyrean. Chaucer's allusions to heaven, hell and purgatory are frequent but chiefly incidental and give no such definite idea of their location as we find in the _Divine Comedy_. The nearest Chaucer comes to indicating the place of heaven is in _The Parlement of Foules_, 55-6, where Africanus speaks of heaven and then points to the galaxy: