TESTIMONIUM - Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Lyne Oriental': Mediterranean and Oriental Languages in the Treatise on the Astrolabe

TLDR: In this paper, the authors present a treatise on the astrolabe, which is divided into five parts, divided into full light rules and naked words in English, for you know Latin but little, my son.

Abstract: Little Lewis, my son, I appreciate well your ability to learn sciences related to numbers and proportions; I also consider your special eagerness to learn the treatise on the astrolabe. As the philosopher says, the person who considers the rightful wishes of his friend wraps himself in his friend. Therefore, I am giving you sufficient [information] on the astrolabe, according to our horizon and the latitude of Oxford, and through the mediation of this little treatise I propose to teach you a certain number of conclusions appertaining to this instrument. I say certain conclusions for three reasons. The first reason is this: be sure that all conclusions to be found in so noble an instrument as is an astrolabe are not perfectly known to any man in this region, I suppose. Another cause is this: that truly, in any treatise on the astrolabe that I have seen, there are some conclusions that will not in all cases [lead the astrolabe] to perform what it is expected to. And some of these [conclusions] are too hard for someone of your tender age to understand. This treatise is divided into five parts. I will show you in full light rules and naked words in English, for you know Latin but little, my little son. But nonetheless, these true conclusions stated in English are sufficient, as they are sufficient to noble clerks Greek, and to Arabs in Arabic, and to Jews in Hebrew, and to Latin folk in Latin. Latin folk were the first to have [translated] these conclusions from various other languages and to write them in their own tongue, that is to say, in Latin. And God knows that in all these languages and in many more, these conclusions have been sufficiently learnt and taught, by diverse rules; just as diverse paths lead diverse folk the right way to Rome. I meekly pray every person who should read or hear this little treatise to excuse my uneducated teaching, and the superfluity of my words, for two reasons. The first is that the peculiar type of teaching