The parlament of foules, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed., with introduction, notes, and glossary, by T. R. Lounsbury.

I4

INTROD UCTION.

souls which are given to mankind by the gift of the gods: above the moon, all things
are eternal. For that ninth sphere, which is in the middle, is the earth: it has no
motion; it is the lowest in space; and all heavy bodies are borne toward it by their
natural downward tendency."
V. I looked at these, lost in wonder. As soon as I had recovered myself, I said,
"What is this sound, so great and so sweet, which fills my ears?" — ' This," he replied, " is that music, which, composed of intervals unequal, but divided proportionately
by rule, is caused by the swing and movement of the spheres themselves, and, by
the proper combination of acute tones with grave, creates with uniformity manifold
and diverse harmonies. For movements so mighty cannot be accomplished in silence;
and it is a law of nature that the farthest sphere on the one side gives forth a base
tone, the farthest on the other a treble; for which reason, the revolution of that
uppermost arch of the heaven, the starry firmament, whose motion is more rapid,
is attended with an acute and high sound; while that of the lowest, or lunar arch, is
attended with a very deep and grave sound. For the ninth sphere, the earth, embracing the middle region of the universe, stays immovably in one fixed place. But
those eight globes between, two 1 of which have the same essential action, produce
tones, distinguished by intervals, to the number of seven;. which number, indeed, is the
knot of almost all things. Men of skill, by imitating the result on the strings of the
lyre, or by means of the human voice, have laid open for themselves a way of return
to this place, just as other men of lofty souls have done the same by devoting themselves during their earthly life to the study of what is divine. But the ears of men,
surfeited by this harmony, have become deaf to it; nor is there in you any duller
sense: just as, at that cataract which is called Catadupa, - where the Nile rushes down
headlong frpm the lofty mountain-tops, - the people who dwell in that neighborhood
have lost the sense of hearing in consequence of the magnitude of the sound. So,
likewise, this harmony, produced by the excessively rapid revolution of the whole
universe, is so great that the ears of men are not able to take it in, in the same manner as you are not able to look the sun in the eye, and your sight is overcome by the
power of its rays." Though I was filled with wonder, nevertheless I kept turning my
eyes from time to time to the earth.
VI. " I perceive," then said Africanus, " that thou still continuest to contemplate the
habitation and the home of man. If that seems to thee as small as it really is, keep,
then, thy eyes fixed on these heavenly objects; look with contempt on those of mortal
life. For what notoriety that lives in the mouths of men, or what glory that is worthy
of being sought after, art thou able to secure? Thou seest that the earth is inhabited
in a few small localities, and that, between those inhabited places, - spots, as it were, on
the surface, - vast desert regions lie spread out; and that those who inhabit the earth
are not only so isolated that no communication can pass among them from one to
another, but that some dwell in an oblique direction as regards you, some in a diagonal, and some stand even exactly opposite you. From these you are certainly not able
to hope for any glory.
" Moreover, thou observest that this same earth is surrounded, and, as it were, girdled, by certain zones, of which thou seest that two - the farthest apart, and resting
at both sides on the very poles of the sky - are stiffened with frost; and that, again,
the central and largest one is burnt up with the heat of the sun. Two are habitable:

1 Mercury and Venus.