Let us examine how this interpretation consists with the other circumstances of the description. The feste-day of this Cambuscan was "The last idus of March"--that is, the 15th of March--"after the yere"--that is, after the _equinoctial year_, which had ended three or four days previously. Hence the sun was in three degrees of Aries--confirmed in Canace's expedition on the following morning, when he was "in the Ram foure degrees yronne," and his corresponding right ascension was twelve minutes. Now by "the angle meridional" was meant the two hours _inequall_ immediately succeeding noon (or while the "1st House" of the sun was passing the meridian), and these two hours may, so near the equinox, be taken as ordinary hours. Therefore, when "Phebus hath left the angle meridional," it was two o'clock P.M., or eight hours after sunrise, which, added to twelve minutes, produces eight hours twelve minutes as the ascending point of the equinoctial. The ascending point of _the ecliptic_ would consequently be twenty degrees in Leo, or within less than a degree of the actual place of the star Regulus, which in point of fact did rise on the 15th of March, in Chaucer's time, almost exactly at two in the afternoon. Such coincidences as these could not result from mere accident; and, whatever may have been Speght's authority for the location of Aldryan, I shall never believe that Chaucer would refer to an inferior star when the great "Stella Regia" itself was in so remarkable a position for his purpose--assuming always, as a matter of course, that he referred his phenomena, not to the country or age wherein he laid the action of his tale, but to his own. This, then, is the precedent by which I support the similar, and rather startling, interpretation I propose of these obscure words "In mena Libra alway." There are two twin stars, of the same magnitude, and not far apart, each of which bears the Arabic title of Min al auwâ; one (β Virginis) in the sign Virgo--the other (δ Virginis) in that of Libra. The latter, in the south of England, in Chaucer's time, would rise a few minutes before the autumnal equinoctial point, and might be called _Libra_ Min al auwâ either from that circumstance, or to distinguish it from its namesake in Virgo. Now on the 18th of April this Libra Min al auwâ would rise in the neighbourhood of Canterbury at about half-past three in the afternoon, so that by four o'clock it would attain an altitude of about five degrees--not more than sufficient to render the moon, supposing it to have risen with the star, visible (by daylight) to the pilgrims "entrying at a towne's end." It is very remarkable that the only year, perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's lifetime, in which the moon could have arisen with this star on the 18th of April, should be the identical year to which Tyrwhitt, _reasoning from historical evidence alone_, would fain attribute the writing of the _Canterbury Tales_. (Vide Introductory Discourse, note 3.)