~ 48 ~
and the year, which I shall have to discuss presently. Meanwhile it is worth noting that this hour-lore, though I do not believe it had any deep root in the popular imagination, lived on to the Middle Ages and was known to Chaucer. The scheme which regulates the hours and days of the week is given in detail in his Astrolabe. But its most striking appearance is in the Knight's Tale[1]. Palamon on Sunday night goes to pray in the temple of Venus 'at her hour,' which we are expressly told is two hours before sunrise, the day being still astrologically measured from sunrise to sunrise. In the third hour from this at sunrise Emily prays in the temple of Diana or the Moon, and Arcite visits Mars' temple at Mars' next hour from this. It will be easily seen that this quite agrees with the scheme. The 23rd hour of Sunday belongs to Venus; the first hour of the next day, Monday at sunrise, belongs to the Moon; and Arcite's hour of prayer was the fourth of Monday. It may be added that Palamon, who put himself under the guardianship of the beneficent Venus, is very appropriately victorious over the votary of the sinister Mars[2]. Valens as I said above extends this system of
