283. _Maydens_; of these Callisto was one (so says Boccaccio); and this is
Chaucer's _Calixte_ (l. 286), and his _Calístopee_ in the Kn. Tale, l. 1198
(A 2056). She was the daughter of the Arcadian king Lycaon, and mother of
Arcas by Jupiter; changed by Juno, on account of jealousy, into a she-bear,
and then raised to the heavens by Jupiter in the form of the constellation
Helice or Ursa Major; see Ovid, Fasti, ii. 156; Metamorph. ii. 401; &c.
(Lewis and Short).
286. _Athalaunte_, Atalanta. There were two of this name; the one here
meant (see Boccaccio) was the one who was conquered in a foot-race by the
lover who married her; see Ovid, Metam. x. 565. The other, who was beloved
by Meleager, and hunted the Calydonian boar, is the one mentioned in the
Kn. Tale, A 2070; see Ovid, Metam. viii. 318. It is clear that Chaucer
thought, at the time, that they were one and the same.
287. _I wante_, I lack; i. e. I do not know. Boccaccio here mentions the
mother of Parthenopæus, whose name Chaucer did not know. She was _the
other_ Atalanta, the wife of Meleager; and Boccaccio did not name her,
because he says 'that other proud one,' meaning the other proud one of the
same name. See the story in Dryden; tr. of Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. viii.
Cf. Troilus, v. 1473.
288. Boccaccio only mentions 'the spouse of Ninus,' i. e. Semiramis, the
great queen of Assyria, Thisbe and Pyramus, 'Hercules in the lap of Iole,'
and Byblis. The rest Chaucer has added. Compare his lists in Prol. to Leg.
of Good Women, 250, and in Cant. Tales, Group B, 63; see the note. See the
Legend for the stories of Dido, Thisbe and Pyramus, and Cleopatra. Paris,
Achilles, Troilus, and Helen are all mentioned in his Troilus; and Hercules
in Cant. Ta., B 3285.
_Candace_ is mentioned again at p. 410, above, l. 16. There was a Candace,
queen of Meroë, mentioned by Pliny, vi. 29; and there is the Candace in the
Acts of the Apostles, viii. 27. But the Candace of fiction was an Indian
queen, who contrived to get into her power no less a person than the
world's conqueror, Alexander the Great. See King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l.
7646, and the Wars of Alexander, ed. Skeat, l. 5314. It is probable that
Candace was sometimes confused with the Canace of Ovid's Heroides, Epist.
xi. (wholly translated by Dryden). In fact, we have sufficient proof of
this confusion; for one MS. reads _Candace_ in the Legend of Good Women,
265, where five other MSS. have _Canace_ or _Canacee_. _Biblis_ is Byblis,
who fell in love with Caunus, and, being repulsed, was changed into a
fountain; Ovid, Metam. ix. 452.
_Tristram_ and _Isoude_ are the Tristran (or Tristan) and Ysolde (or Ysolt)
of French medieval romance; cf. Ho. Fame, 1796, and Balade to Rosemounde,
l. 20. Gower, in his Conf. Amantis, bk. 8 (ed. Pauli, iii. 359) includes
Tristram and Bele Isolde in his long list of lovers, and gives an outline
of the story in the same, bk. 6 (iii. 17). Ysolde was the wife of King Mark
of Cornwall, and the mistress of her nephew Sir Tristram, of whom she
became passionately enamoured from having drunk a philter by mistake; see
Wheeler, Noted Names of Fiction, s. v. _Isolde_. The Romance of Sir
Tristram was edited by Sir W. Scott, and has been re-edited by Kölbing, and
by G. P. McNeill (for the Scottish Text Society). The name _Ysoude_
constantly misprinted _Ysonde_, even by the editors. Chaucer mentions her
again; see Leg. G. Women, 254; Ho. of Fame, 1796.
292. _Silla_, Scylla; daughter of Nisus, of Megara, who, for love of Minos,
cut off her father's hair, upon which his life depended, and was
transformed in consequence into the bird Ciris; see Ovid, Metam. viii. 8.
Another Scylla was changed by Circe into a sea-monster; Ovid, Metam. xiv.
52. Their stories shew that the former is meant; see Leg. of Good Women,
1910, and the note.
_Moder of Romulus_, Ilia (also called Rhæa Silvia), daughter of Numitor,
dedicated to Vesta, and buried alive for breaking her vows; see Livy, bk.
1; Verg. Æn. i. 274.
The quotation from Boccaccio ends here.