NOTE 2. - "Vos di que la Tramontaine ne part. Et encore vos di que
l'estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou ne grant" (G.T.). The
Tramontaine is the Pole star: -
"De nostre Pere l'Apostoille
Volsisse qu'il semblast l'estoile
Qui ne se muet ...
Par cele estoile vont et viennent
Et lor sen et lor voie tiennent
Il l'apelent la tres montaigne."
- La Bible Guiot de Provins in Barbazan, by Meon, II. 377.
The Meistre is explained by Pauthier to be Arcturus; but this makes
Polo's error greater than it is. Brunetto Latini says: "Devers la
tramontane en a il i. autre (vent) plus debonaire, qui a non Chorus.
Cestui apelent li marinier MAISTRE por vij. estoiles qui sont en celui
meisme leu," etc. (Li Tresors, p. 122). Magister or Magistra in
mediaeval Latin, La Maistre in old French, signifies "the beam of a
plough." Possibly this accounts for the application of Maistre to the
Great Bear, or Plough. But on the other hand the pilot's art is called in
old French maistrance. Hence this constellation may have had the name as
the pilot's guide, - like our Lode-star. The name was probably given to
the N.W. point under a latitude in which the Great Bear sets in that
quarter. In this way many of the points of the old Arabian Rose des Vents
were named from the rising or setting of certain constellations. (See
Reinaud's Abulfeda, Introd. pp. cxcix.-cci.)
NOTE 3.
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