Both methods of explaining the phrase lead eventually to the same result, which is also identical with the interpretation of Chaucer's own contemporaries, as appears in its imitation by Lydgate in the opening of his "Story of Thebes:"
"Whan bright Phebus passed was the Ram, Midde of Aprill, and into the Bull came."
And it is by no means the least remarkable instance of want of perception in Tyrwhitt, that he actually cites these two lines of Lydgate's _as corroborative of his own interpretation_, which places the sun _in the middle of Taurus_.
I enter into this explanation, not that I think it necessary to examine too curiously into the consistency of an expression which evidently was intended only in a general sense, but that the groundlessness of Tyrwhitt's alleged necessity for the alteration of "the Ram" into "the Bull" might more clearly appear.
I have said that Tyrwhitt was not a competent critic of Chaucer's practical science, and I may perhaps be expected to point out some other instance of his failure in that respect than is afforded by the subject itself. This I may do by reference to a passage in "The Marchante's Tale," which evinces a remarkable want of perception not only in Tyrwhitt, but in all the editors of Chaucer that I have had an opportunity of consulting.
The morning of the garden scene is said in the text to be "er that dayes eight were passed of the month of _Juil_"--but, a little further on, the same day is thus described:
"Bright was the day and blew the firmament, Phebus of gold his stremes doun hath sent To gladen every flour with his warmnesse; He was that time in Geminis, I gesse, But litel fro his declination In Cancer."
How is it possible that any person could read these lines and not be struck at once with the fact that they refer to the 8th of _June_ and not to the 8th of _July_? The sun would leave Gemini and enter Cancer on the 12th of June; Chaucer was describing the 8th, and with his usual accuracy he places the sun "but litel fro" _the summer solstice_!
Since "Juil" is an error common perhaps to all previous editions, Tyrwhitt might have been excused for repeating it, if he had been satisfied with only that: but he must signalise _his edition_ by inserting in the Glossary attached to it--"JUIL, _the month of July_," referring, as the sole { 317} authority for the word, to this very line in question of "The Marchante's Tale!"
