Almost always when Chaucer wishes to mention the time of day at which the events he is relating take place, he does so by describing the sun's position in the sky or the direction of his motion. We can imagine that Chaucer often smiled as he did this, for he sometimes humorously apologizes for his poetical conceits and conventions by expressing his idea immediately afterwards in perfectly plain terms. Such is the case in the passage already quoted where Chaucer refers to the sun by the epithets "dayes honour," "hevenes ye," and "nightes fo" and then explains them by saying "al this clepe I the sonne;" and in the lines: "Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For thorisonte hath reft the sonne his light;" explained by the simple words: "This is as muche to seye as it was night."[64] Thus it is that Chaucer's poetic references to the apparent daily motion of the sun about the earth are nearly always simply in the form of allusions to his rising and setting. Canacee in the _Squieres Tale_, (F. 384 ff.) is said to rise at dawn, looking as bright and fresh as the spring sun risen four degrees from the horizon. "Up ryseth fresshe Canacee hir-selve, As rody and bright as dooth the yonge sonne, That in the Ram[65] is four degrees up-ronne; Noon hyer was he, whan she redy was;" Many of these references to the rising and setting of the sun might be mentioned, if space permitted, simply for their beauty as poetry. One of the most beautiful is the following: "And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte, That al the orient laugheth of the lighte, And with his stremes dryeth in the greves The silver dropes, hanging on the leves."[66] When, in the _Canterbury Tales_, the manciple has finished his tale, Chaucer determines the time by observing the position of the sun and by making calculations from the length of his own shadow: "By that the maunciple hadde his tale al ended, The sonne fro the south lyne was descended So lowe, that he nas nat, to my sighte, Degrees nyne and twenty as in highte. Foure of the clokke it was tho, as I gesse; For eleven foot, or litel more or lesse, My shadwe was at thilke tyme, as there, Of swich feet as my lengthe parted were In six feet equal of porporcioun."[67] We must not omit mention of the humorous touch with which Chaucer, in the mock heroic tale of _Chanticleer and the Fox_ told by the nun's priest, makes even the rooster determine the time of day by observing the altitude of the sun in the sky: "Chauntecleer, in al his pryde, His seven wyves walkyng by his syde, Caste up his eyen to the brighte sonne, That in the signe of Taurus hadde y-ronne Twenty degrees and oon, and somewhat more; And knew by kynde, and by noon other lore, That it was pryme, and crew with blisful stevene. 'The sonne,' he sayde, 'is clomben up on hevene Fourty degrees and oon, and more, y-wis.'"[68]