[4] "And Lowis, yif so be that I shewe thee in my lighte English as trewe conclusiouns touching this matere, and naught only as trewe but as many and as subtil conclusiouns as ben shewed in Latin in any commune tretis of the Astrolabie, con me the more thank;" _Prologue to the Astrolabe_, 35-39. [5] Skeat, _Notes on the Astrolabe, Prologue_, 62. "Warton says that 'John Some and Nicholas Lynne' were both Carmelite friars, and wrote calendars constructed for the meridian of Oxford. He adds that Nicholas Lynne is said to have made several voyages to the most northerly parts of the world, charts of which he presented to Edward III. These charts are, however, lost." [6] _The Astrolabe_, I. 8.9. According to Warton the work in question is an introduction to judicial astronomy. (Lounsbury, II. 398.) [7] F. 1273. "His tables Toletanes forth he broght." [8] _Englische Studien_ III 209. See also J. S. P. Tatlock, "Chaucer and Dante," in _Modern Philology_, III, 367. 1905. [9] _Parlement of Foules_, 57-59. [10] _Compleynt of Mars_, 29. [11] _Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan_, 8-12. "By worde eterne whylom was hit shape That fro the fifte cercle, in no manere, Ne mighte a drope of teres doun escape. But now so wepeth Venus in hir spere, That with hir teres she wol drenche us here." [12] Since Chaucer calls Mars the lord of the third heaven and elsewhere speaks of Venus as presiding over that sphere it is evident that he sometimes reckons from the earth outwards, and sometimes from the outer sphere of Saturn towards the earth. The regular order of the planets, counting from the earth, was supposed to be as follows: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, making Mars the third from the last. [13] III. 1-2. [14] "O firste moevyng cruel firmament, With thy diurnal sweigh that crowdest ay And hurlest al from Est til Occident, That naturelly wolde holde another way." (B. 295-8) Chaucer does not use the term 'firmament' with sole reference to the star-sphere. Here it clearly refers to the _primum mobile_; it often applies to the whole expanse of the heavens. [15] _Boethius_, Book I: Metre V, 1-4. The conception of God as the creator and unmoved mover of the universe originated in the philosophy of Aristotle, who was the one great authority, aside from Scripture and the Church Fathers, recognized by the Middle Ages. God's abode was thought to be in the Empyrean, the motionless sphere beyond the ninth, and the last heaven. This is the meaning in the reference to the eternal throne ("perdurable chayer") of God. [16] Many of these beautiful descriptions, however, are not strictly Chaucer's own, since they occur in his translation of Boethius. It will suffice to quote one of these descriptions: