Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury TalesChaucer, Geoffrey
General
Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey
English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500
34. The moon's latitude is never more than 5¼° from the ecliptic, and this
small distance is, 'in common treatises of Astrolabie,' altogether
neglected; so that it is supposed to move in the ecliptic. First, then,
take the moon's altitude, say 30°. Next take the altitude of some bright
star 'on the moon's side,' i.e. nearly in the same azimuth as the moon,
taking care to choose a star which is represented upon the _Rete_ by a
pointed tongue. Bring this tongue's point to the right altitude among the
almicanteras, and then see which degree of the ecliptic lies on the
almicantera which denotes an altitude of 30°. This will give the moon's
place, 'if the stars in the Astrolabe be set after the truth,' i.e. if the
point of the tongue is exactly where it should be.
35. The motion of a planet is called _direct_, when it moves in the
direction of the succession of the zodiacal signs; _retrograde_, when in
the contrary direction. When a planet is on the right or east side of the
Meridional line, and is moving forward along the signs, without increase of
declination, its altitude will be less on the second occasion than on the
first at the moment when the altitude of the fixed star is the same as
before. The same is true if the planet be retrograde, and on the western
side. The contrary results occur when the second altitude is greater than
the first. But the great defect of this method is that it may be rendered
fallacious by a change in the planet's declination.
36. See fig. 14, Plate VI. If the equinoctial circle in this figure be
supposed to be superposed upon that in fig. 5, Plate III, and be further
supposed to revolve backwards through an angle of about 60° till the point
1 (fig. 14) rests upon the point where the 8th hour-line crosses the
equinoctial, the beginning of the 2nd house will then be found to be on the
line of midnight. Similarly, all the other results mentioned follow. For it
is easily seen that each 'house' occupies a space equal to 2 hours, so that
the bringing of the 3rd house to the midnight line brings 1 to the 10th
hour-line, and a similar placing of the 4th house brings 1 to the 12th
hour-line, which is the _horizon obliquus_ itself. Moving onward 2 more
hours, the point 7 (the nadir of 1) comes to the end of the 2nd hour,
whilst the 5th house comes to the north; and lastly, when 7 is at the end
of the 4th hour, the 6th house is so placed. To find the nadir of a house,
we have only to add 6; so that the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th
houses are the nadirs of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th houses
respectively.
37. Again see fig. 14, Plate VI. Here the 10th house is at once seen to be
on the meridional line. In the quadrant from 1 to 10, the even division of
the quadrant into 3 parts shews the 12th and 11th houses. Working downwards
from 1, we get the 2nd and 3rd houses, and the 4th house beginning with the
north line. The rest are easily found from their nadirs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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