THE CANTERBURY PUZZLES
he tells us, saying, "Thou lookest as thou wouldst find a hare,
For ever on the ground I see thee stare." The poet replied to the
request for a tale by launching into a long, spun-out and
ridiculous poem, intended to ridicule the popular romances of
the day, after twenty-two stanzas of which the company refused
to hear any more and induced him to start another tale in prose.
It is an interesting fact that in the " Parson's Prologue " Chaucer
actually introduces a little astronomical problem. In modern
English this reads somewhat as follows :
" The sun from the south line was descended so low that it was
not to my sight more than twenty-nine degrees. I calculate that it
was four o'clock, for, assuming my height to be six feet, my
shadow was eleven feet, a little more or less. At the same
moment the moon's altitude (she being in mid-Libra) was steadily
increasing as we entered at the west end of the village." A
correspondent has taken the trouble to work this out and finds
that the local time was 3.58 p.m., correct to a minute, and that
the day of the year was the 22nd or 23rd of April, modern style.
This speaks well for Chaucer's accuracy, for the first line of
the Tales tells us that the pilgrimage was in April—they are
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