Time And Tide Wait For No Man

Around 1395, Geoffrey Chaucer alluded to the fact that human events or concerns cannot stop the passage of time or the movement of the tides, when he wrote in his The Clerk’s Tale, “For though we sleep, or wake, or roam, or ride, the time will fly; it will pause for no man.”  In Old English, the word ‘tide’ was a synonym for ‘time’.  The periodic rise and fall of the waters in the ocean and of water bodies (such as gulfs and bays) connected with the ocean that occurs usually twice a day under the gravitational pull of the moon happens on a predictable basis, so it is easy to see how tide is associated with time. Since tides come at regular intervals, tide can be an opportune time for an event, period or season, such as a Yuletide, eventide, Eastertide, or a noontide.  Between the 7th and 14th centuries in Europe people used sundials that were marked with the ‘tides’ and these periods were around three hours long, starting at 6am and ending at 6pm, and the working day was divided up into these four tides.  Working people could also tell which ‘tide’ it was by listening to the ringing of certain church bells.

There is famous story about King Cnut, aka King Canute (995 – 1035) who was the king of England, Denmark and Norway and the waves.  One day the monarch ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore, while the tide was rising, and as the waters approached, he commanded them to retire, and to obey the voice who was lord of the ocean.  He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their submission; but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and that power resided with one Being alone, in whose hands were all the elements of nature; who could say to ocean, ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther’; and who could level with his nod the most towering piles of human pride and ambition. 

Written for Linda G. Hill Life in progress One-Liner Wednesday – May 9 prompt.