Was born the plane! Jupiter? And if he was, did it make any difference to him? I have been puzzling over a footnote in the widely used Norton Critical Edition of Prelude (1979), a note that is repeated in at least two later editions, Stephen Gill's Oxford (1984) and Duncan Wu's Five-Book Prelude (1997). It concerns this passage, from Book 4: It [a new-born feeling] spread far and wide: trees, I the mounatains shared it, and the brooks. stars of heaven, now seen in their old haunts-- White Sirius glittering o'er the southern crags, Orion With his belt, and those fair Seven, Acquaintances of every little child. And my own star. (1805 version. 233-39) note begins: Wordsworth was born on April 7, and thus the planet Jupiter, I am no astrologist, but this makes no sense to me. has no particular association with April, or with the sign Aries (March 20 to April 19). It wanders through all the zodiacal signs in its twelve-year cycle, spending about a year in each. It was not in Aries on April 7, 1770, but in Saggitarius, about 120 degrees away. William was not born under in any way I understand. Since the notes for the Norton edition were written by Jonathan Wordsworth, whose authority is great and well-de-served, I have hesitated to question this one, but he offered no evidence for this claim, and I have found nothing elsewhere in to warrant it. Even if proof turned up, moreover, that William thought was his natal or something it would not explicate the line, which is perfectly intelligible without it, and which previous editors did not think it necessary to comment on. note attributes astrological ideas to the poet without foundation, and that claim, which has cloned itself in later editions, would, if it were taken seriously, radically alter a reader's understanding of Wordsworth's beliefs. Why is Wordsworth's beloved star? Surely because it is and as he makes clear in two passages in other poems. The of Jove, so beautiful and large / In the mid heavens, shines above the peak in There is an Eminence (1800). In Excursion (1814) a character points to and calls it glorious (0.763). It is easy to forget how much more important the moon, stars, and planets were in 1800 than they are in the 21st century, especially to country people where there was no light pollution to dim or distract their view, and especially to Wordsworth, who was in the habit of rambling at all hours, lie would have seen on hundreds of occasions, often amidst a full 180-degree panorama of the sky. Dorothy too mentions several times. was very glorious, she writes, among the Ambleside (December 17, 1801). When we returned, many stars were out, the clouds were moveless, in the sky soft purple, the Lake of Rydale calm, behind, at least we call him, but William says we always call the largest Jupiter (January 29, 1802). Among planets, of course, Venus is a good deal brighter, but if you are out late walking the Ambleside hills in the winter you would not see Venus at all, for it has either already set or not yet risen; it is never visible in the mid heavens. You might see however, as the brightest in the sky, beautiful and glorious. That seems sufficient reason for to claim it as his favorite star. of course, is not a star at all in the strict sense, like the others names, hut a planet. He was content to use the traditional terminology, as Dorothy did, whereby a planet is a which derives from the Greek [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], wandering star, and in the same spirit he calls the moon a planet in the first version of Strange fits of passion (24), for a planet is what it was tinder the ancient system. As for the other stars, they make a satisfying sequence for observers of the sky: you can pass on a more or less straight line from the brightest of the true stars, Sirius, which lies south of the celestial equator, through the belt of Orion, which lies right on the equator, to the Pleiades, the seven sisters, which lie to the north. …