And again,
“… Tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots
Upon this body, which below on earth
Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?”
Paradise, cant. ii.
Chaucer, in the “Testament of Cresside,” adverts to the man in the moon, and attributes to him the same idea of theft. Of Lady Cynthia, or the moon, he says—
“Her gite was gray and full of spottis blake,
And on her brest a chorle painted ful even,
Bering a bush of thornis on his backe,
Whiche for his theft might clime so ner the heaven.”
Ritson, among his “Ancient Songs,” gives one extracted from a manuscript attributed by Mr. Wright to the period of Edward I., on the Man in the Moon, but in very obscure language. The first verse, altered into more modern orthography, runs as follows:
“Man in the Moon stand and stit,
On his bot-fork his burden he beareth,
It is much wonder that he do na doun slit,
For doubt lest he fall he shudd’reth and shivereth.
* * * * *
“When the frost freezes must chill he bide,
The thorns be keen his attire so teareth,
Nis no wight in the world there wot when he syt,
Ne bote it by the hedge what weeds he weareth.”
