415. _astronomye_, (really) astrology. See Saunders on Chaucer, p. 111; Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840), ii. 202. 415, 416. _kepte_, watched. The _houres_ are the astrological hours. He carefully watched for a favourable star in the ascendant. 'A great portion of the medical science of the middle ages depended upon astrological and other superstitious observances.'--Wright. 'A Phisition must take heede and aduise him of a certaine thing, that _fayleth not, nor deceiueth_, the which thing Astronomers of Ægypt taught, that by coniunction of the bodye of the Moone with sterres fortunate, commeth dreadful sicknesse to good end: and with contrary Planets falleth the contrary, that is, to euill ende'; &c.--Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29. Precisely the same sort of thing was in vogue much later, viz. in 1578; see Bullein's Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence (E. E. T. S.), p. 32. 416. _magik naturel._ Chaucer alludes to the same practices in the House of Fame, 1259-70 (vol. iii. p. 38):-- 'Ther saugh I pleyen Iogelours . . . . . . And clerkes eek, which conne wel Al this _magyke naturel_, That craftely don hir ententes To make, _in certeyn ascendentes_, Images, lo! through which magyk To make a man ben hool or syk.' 417. The _ascendent_ is the point of the zodiacal circle which happens to be ascending above the horizon at a given moment, such as the moment of birth. Upon it depended the drawing out of a man's horoscope, which represented the aspect of the heavens at some given critical moment. The moment, in the present case, is that for making images. It was believed that images of men and animals could be made of certain substances and _at certain times_, and could be so treated as to cause good or evil to a patient, by means of magical and planetary influences. See Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35-47. The sense is--'He knew well how to choose a fortunate ascendant for treating images, to be used as charms to help the patient.' 'With Astrologie joyne elements also, To _fortune_ their Workings as theie go.' Norton's Ordinall, in Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum, p. 60.