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EXAM HINT for midterm - look at underlined things (not links).
This is a brief synopsis of the major mythological references in the works we will be reading this semester. The myth will be given in a narrative; some of the significant points or characters that Chaucer uses will be placed in a bullet list below the narrative. I will also note classical references that have some basis in fact and will so indicate in the description.
Note: I have sometimes used Greek names for the gods, sometimes Roman; this page is a compilation of previous notes done at different times. I have on some occasions given both Greek and Roman names for the classical deities. I will attempt to make things more consistent as soon as I get a chance. BJM
If you want to see the texts of Greek and Roman mythology,
visit the MIT Classics Department and their online Classics
Archive: classics.mit.edu
According to Greek myth, Eris, the goddess of discord, wanted to stir up trouble for the gods; she was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the parents of Achilles, and felt snubbed. Therefore, she made a golden apple and wrote "For the Fairest" on it. When Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena were together, Eris tossed the apple amidst them, and they all began arguing as to who was the fairest. To end the squabble, Zeus asked Paris, a prince of Troy and reputedly the most handsome man on earth, to decide the issue. Athena offered to make Paris the victor in every battle he fought if he chose her; Hera offered to make him king of the earth; Aphrodite offered him the love of the most beautiful woman on earth. Paris chose the last, and Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus, fell in love with him. Paris took her to Sparta, and Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon raised an army, including the heroes Achilles and Odysseus, to go take her back. The gods took sides in the war; Athena sided with the Greeks, as did Hera. However, the Palladium, a shrine of Athena with a statue of her that had fallen from Olympus in years past, was venerated by the Trojans and considered a key to their success. Diomedes and Odysseus stole the statue (in some versions of the legend, with the inside help of Antenor) just before devising the strategem of the Trojan Horse.
Due to the valor of Hector, the Trojan prince and elder brother of Troilus, the Greeks were held at bay for ten years. Hector killed Patroclus, a friend of Achilles, and Achilles in turn killed Hector and dragged his body around the walls of Troy behind his chariot, for which act of desecration the gods allowed Achilles to be mortally wounded in his heel. With both major heroes gone, the Greeks resorted to deceit; Odysseus came up with the idea of hiding soldiers inside the Trojan Horse to open the gates of Troy at night, and Troy was eventually captured.
The Trojan myth gave rise to many other stories: the Iliad (the story of the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon over the slave girls Chriseis and Briseis, and Achilles's refusal to fight); the Nostoi (homecoming stories of the Greek heroes), the Odyssey (Odysseus's ten-year quest to return to his wife Penelope); the Aeneid (Virgil's legend of the founding of Rome by the Trojan prince Aeneas); the Brut (an English legend in which Trojan survivors led by Felix Brutus found cities in England).
Thyestes and Atreus are sons of Pelops and Hippodamia; Atreus is married to Aerope with two sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon (the Atreidae = sons of Atreus). Thyestes commits adultery with Aerope. As an act of vengeance, Atreus kills twelve of Thyestes's children and serves them to him for dinner, but his son Aegisthus escapes, and Thyestes swears him to vengeance. The Atreidae do well for themselves; Menelaus marries Helen and becomes king of Sparta, having Hermione as a daughter, while Agamemnon marries Clytemnestra and rules Argos, eventually having a son, Orestes, and two daughters, Electra and Iphigeneia. When Paris abducts Helen and starts the Trojan War, Agamemnon boasts that the archers of Argos will shoot better than the goddess Artemis; Artemis is displeased and causes the winds to blow against Argos, keeping the Greeks powerless to go to Troy. Agamemnon realizes that he has offended the gods and consults the prophet Calchas, who warns him that Artemis can only be appeased by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Agamemnon sacrifices her with the help of Odysseus and Diomedes, who trick Iphigeneia into coming to the altar, and Clytemnestra is understandably furious. When Agamemnon is away, Aegisthus, plotting vengeance on the Atreidae, seduces Clytemnestra and rules Argos through her. When Agamemnon gets back, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra murder him in his bath. Fearing for Orestes's life, his sister Electra sends him away. Eight years later, now a young adult, Orestes returns with his friend Pylades; goaded by Electra, they kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Although the Greeks would have seen a certain amount of justice in the deaths of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Aegisthus for their impious acts, Orestes is in a no-win situation because he is a matricide, despite having taken the necessary vengeance for his father's death. He is immediately driven mad and pursued by the Furies to Athens, where Apollo comes to his defense at a trial; his madness is cured, and the Furies become special protectresses of Athens.
| Pelops m. Hippodamia | ||||
| Atreus m. Aerope | Pittheus | Chrysippus | Thyestes | |
| Menelaus m. Helen | Agamemnon m. Clytemnestra | Twelve murdered children plus Aegisthus | ||
| Hermione | Iphigeneia, Electra, Orestes | |||
Just to make the family even more dysfunctional, Orestes killed Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and the betrothed of Hermione, and married her himself. Also, before he became king of Thebes, Laius, the father of Oedipus, conceived a desire for Chrysippus and attempted to kidnap him; Chrysippus killed himself rather than submit to Laius. Of course, the whole story of the house of Cadmus is that of one big dysfunctional family, but that myth goes beyond the scope of this web page and Troilus and Criseyde.
Laius, king of Thebes, and his wife Jocasta have no children; the oracle at Delphi has foretold that any son of Laius would be doomed to kill his father. Jocasta does not like the fact that Laius will not sleep with her; one night he gets drunk, and she takes him to bed, conceiving a child. On the boy's birth, Laius orders the child to be lamed and then exposed in the woods. The herdsman ordered to do so, however, cannot bear to do it, and takes the child instead to be raised by the king and queen of Corinth; his adoptive parents give him the name Oedipus (wounded foot). When he comes of age, he goes to see the oracle, but the oracle will not let him in the temple; he is polluted because he is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Afraid for his adoptive parents (he is unaware of his history), he leaves Corinth and flees to Thebes. On the way, he meets a man who is blocking the road; in anger, he strikes and kills him. Further down the road, he encounters the Sphinx, who has been eating the people of Thebes if they cannot solve her riddle ("What goes on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" Answer: a man - crawls on all fours as an infant, walks as an adult, uses a cane in old age.) Oedipus solves the riddle and the Sphinx kills herself in frustration; in gratitude, the people of Thebes allow Oedipus to marry Jocasta, their queen (her husband Laius, it seems, was killed on the road one day by an unknown assailant.) Years and several children later, a plague strikes Thebes, and the soothsayer Tiresias tells the king that someone in the town is guilty of a great crime. Oedipus vows to find out who it is, only to discover that it is he; Laius was the man on the road whom he killed on the way to Thebes, and Jocasta is his mother, Laius's widow. In agony, Oedipus blinds himself and goes into exile with his sister/daughter Antigone; Jocasta hangs herself. On Oedipus' exile, his sons Eteocles and Polyneices share the rule of Thebes; no one will take Oedipus in, so he wanders until Theseus, king of Athens and a great hero himself, allows him to remain in Colonus, where he eventually dies and is buried.
After the exile of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices made a deal that each of them would rule Thebes for a year and then hand the throne over to his brother for the next year; at the end of the first year, however, Eteocles decided that he would not leave the throne and banished Polyneices. Polyneices went to Argos, where he gathered the assistance of six other heroes (Tydeus, Amphiaraüs, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, and Adrastus, king of Argos whose daughter married Polyneices) to come back and fight for the throne. After most of the heroes had died on the battlefield (Adrastus is the only one to survive the battle), Polyneices and Eteocles agreed to a single combat, in which both mortally wounded each other. Creon, their uncle, became the king of Thebes and refused proper burial to Polyneices for attacking the city. Antigone, however, defied Creon and performed the funeral rite over Polyneices's body; infuriated, Creon ordered her to be buried alive in Eteocles's tomb.
For the whole story, read Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone; Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes; Euripides, The Phoenician Women; Statius, Thebaid.
Online: Aeschylus, Seven
Against Thebes at MIT
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid tells the story of Philomela. Procne is married to Tereus, but when she summons Philomela, her sister, for a visit, Tereus is seized by desire for Philomela. Tereus rapes Philomela and tears out her tongue to prevent her from telling anyone. She weaves the story into a tapestry, however, and gives it to Procne. Procne sees the story and the two come up with a grisly revenge plot: Procne kills Tereus's son and serves him up to his father as dinner. In a mad rage, Tereus pursues them with a sword, but the gods protect them; Procne is turned into a swallow, and Philomela is turned into a nightingale. Tereus is turned into a hoopoe - a harmless bird native to southern Europe.
Online: Ovid, Metamorphoses
Book Six at MIT
The Muses were the nine goddesses of the arts and of learning; it was a common poetic device in classical times to begin a poem by invoking the Muses and asking them for their aid in writing the work.
| Clio | Muse of History |
| Calliope | Muse of Epic Poetry |
| Erato | Muse of Love Poetry |
| Euterpe | Muse of Music |
| Melpomene | Muse of Tragedy |
| Polyhymnia | Muse of Sacred Poetry |
| Terpsichore | Muse of Dance |
| Thalia | Muse of Comedy |
| Urania | Muse of Astronomy |
Online: The Nine Muses
Ovid tells in the Metamorphoses of how Jupiter wedded Venus to Vulcan, but Venus was not happy because her husband was not the most attractive of the gods. She began to conduct an affair with Mars, but Vulcan found out, forged an incredibly fine net of metal, and put it on his wife's bed. When Mars and Venus were together, he caught them in the net and exposed them to the laughter of the other gods and goddesses.
Online: Metamorphoses Book Four at MIT
Polyxena was a Trojan princess who was loved by Achilles; at the capture of Troy, the ghost of the dead Achilles appears and demands her as a sacrifice so that their spirits may be together forever. Neoptolemus, Achilles's son, fulfills his father's request. Cassandra was another Trojan princess who was beloved of Apollo and promised to be his lover if he gave her the gift of prophecy; Apollo did so, but Cassandra spurned him. Apollo then cursed her so that her prophecies would be correct, but no one would believe them. At the fall of Troy, she is captured and given to Agamemnon as a slave; she foretells his death at the hands of Clytemnestra, but again, she is not believed until too late. (See the Oresteia section above.)
In the Aeneid, Virgil tells of how Aeneas, wandering from Troy and fated to found Rome, is taken in by the Carthaginians and their queen, Dido. Juno, who does not want Aeneas to fulfill his fate, makes a deal with Venus that the two of them will help Dido fall in love with him. One day when Dido and Aeneas are out hunting, Juno makes a storm come up, and the lovers take shelter in a cave and make love. Dido regards this as an espousal, so when Mercury shows up to remind Aeneas that he must go to Rome and he sneaks off with his men in the middle of the night, she goes mad with grief and kills herself, ordering her sister to burn her on a pyre. Before her death, Dido curses Aeneas and vows that Carthage will never be a friend to Rome (a "prophecy" made true by the Punic Wars).
Tithonus was a mortal man who was so handsome that Aurora, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with him. They wed, and she agreed to give him any gift he wanted. He wanted to be in love with her forever, so he asked for eternal life; however, he forgot to ask for eternal youth to go along with it, and so she remained young while he aged.
An advisor to King Priam; in some accounts, he is responsible for betraying Troy by advising that the Palladium be moved, which makes its theft by Odysseus and Diomedes easier.
Fama is a Roman personification of rumor; in the Aeneid, she is depicted as a winged monster with multiple wagging tongues.
In the Metamorphoses, Orpheus is a harper and son of Apollo - his music can calm any savage beast. When his beloved Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies, he uses his harp to charm his way to the underworld and beg for the release of her soul. Hades/Pluto agrees, but only if Orpheus agrees not to look back at her on the way up. Just a bit before reaching the mouth of the cave, he is overcome by desire and looks back, and she is taken back down to Hades. Grieving, his music is drowned out by the shouts of the Maenads, and they tear him to pieces.
Daughter of the goddess of the harvest, Demeter/Ceres. Hades/Pluto falls in love with her and kidnaps her, taking her down to the underworld, where he offers to marry her. Proserpina is not entirely repulsed by Pluto, but she is not entirely happy about living the underworld. While thinking, she eats six seeds of a pomegranate, and once a being has eaten the food of the underworld, they are forbidden to return to the world above. Ascalaphus, the gardener of Hades, tells Pluto that Proserpina has done so, for which Ceres turns him into an owl. This presents a problem to the world above, however, since Ceres is despondent, and the world is in a perpetual state of winter. Finally, Jupiter negotiates a deal: Proserpina will spend one month out of every year in the underworld for every seed of the pomegranate she has eaten, and in those six months Ceres will mourn (during autumn and winter). The other six months, however, she will stay in the upper world, and Ceres's joy will create the seasons of spring and summer. Pluto gets a beautiful bride, Proserpina gets a wealthy and powerful god for a husband but still gets to get out of the underworld, Ceres gets to see her daughter six months out of the year, and the world has its seasons back - all turns out for the best.
Jupiter is having an affair with Io. The two are about to be discovered, and so Jupiter disguises her as a cow, which Juno promptly asks for as a gift to prevent any further affairs. Juno puts Argus, a guardian with a hundred eyes, to watch over her; no matter what hour of the day, at least a few eyes will be awake and open. Jupiter has Mercury play the pipes and lull all of the eyes to sleep, at which point Mercury cut his head off. Juno drives Io away, and when Jupiter promises that will never be with her again, Juno gives her her human shape back.
King of Orchomenus who left his wife Nephele to marry Ino. Ino tricked Athamas into sacrificing Phrixus, his son by Nephele; however, just before Athamas did so, a golden ram with wings appeared and carried Phrixus and his sister Helle away. The ram was sacrificed in thanksgiving to Jupiter, and its golden fleece was kept at Colchis, where it was eventually won by Jason and the Argonauts. Alcestis, daughter of King Pelias of Colchis, offered to die in place of her husband Admetus and was rescued from Hades by Hercules, who was for a time with the Argonauts.
In Metamorphoses 4, Ovid tells the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, two young lovers who are neighbors but are kept apart by their parents. They find a crack in the basement wall through which they communicate and agree to elope. Thisbe gets to the meeting place first, but meets up with a lion who has just killed a deer. She flees but drops her mantle; the lion noses around the mantle, getting it bloody from the deer, and goes away. Pyramus arrives and sees Thisbe's bloody mantle; thinking she is dead, he falls on his sword. Thisbe returns and finds Pyramus's body; she takes his sword and kills herself.
In Metamorphoses 10, Ovid tells of Cinyras, who boasts of his daughter Myrrha's beauty, and the gods take vengeance by making her fall in love with her father. She uses deceit to sleep with him, conceiving and bearing Adonis, but her shame and guilt are so great that she asks the gods to end her life. The gods take some measure of pity on her and she becomes a tree, and her tears are turned into myrrh. Adonis is so handsome that both Proserpina and Venus fall in love with him, but Venus keeps him for herself. Venus and Adonis are incredibly happy, but a jealous Proserpina gets Mars to make sure that Adonis is killed while hunting a boar, and Venus allows his blood to turn into the anemone flower.
Legendary king of Crete and son of Zeus and Europa. Zeus had taken the form of a bull to kidnap and seduce Europa, and Minos's wife Pasiphaë became obsessed with the fact; she had a hollow cow constructed so that she too could have intercourse with a bull. The product of this union was the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull, and to hide his shame (and to keep the monster from escaping), Minos had an elaborate maze, the Labyrinth, constructed to contain the Minotaur. Monsters have tremendous appetites, however, so every nine years Minos would order the Athenians to sacrifice seven youths and seven maidens to the Minotaur. The Athenians, tired of this grisly tribute, sent Theseus over as one of the youths, and with the help of Ariadne, Minos's daughter, who gave Theseus a ball of string to help navigate the maze, Theseus killed the Minotaur and helped Ariadne escape. Ariadne eventually married the god Dionysus/Bacchus and had four children with him. Minos was eventually murdered, and because he had been such a stern ruler in life, Hades gave him a job as the judge of the dead.
The Fates (Parcae in Latin, Moirai in Greek) are the three sisters who determine the course of a person's life. Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it at the appropriate time.
Sister of Apollo and goddess of childbirth; mentioned in 4.1591.
Another name for Diana, goddess of the moon; mentioned in 4.1608.
Ixion attempted to seduce Hera, but Zeus found out and substituted a cloud in Hera's shape. From the cloud was born the race of centaurs. For this offense, Ixion was eternally bound to a fiery wheel in Hades.
Son of Apollo, who convinced his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun. He lost control of the chariot, and Zeus had to destroy it and Phaethon with a thunderbolt lest it do more damage to the earth. Mentioned in 5.663.
Pauci dinoscere possunt / vera bona atque illis multum diversa, remota / erroris nebula. (Few are able to discern true goods from their many opposites, removing the clouds of error).
Major classical authors named by Chaucer in 5.1792. In the Inferno, Dante meets four of these five (meeting Horace instead of Statius) and takes his place among them as a great poet, hoping that his work will be regarded as well as theirs someday. Chaucer knew Dante's works and may be hoping that his poem will be regarded in a similarly good light, and thus he places his book among their works.
Most of these myths are mentioned in the catalogue of unhappy lovers in PF 288-294 unless otherwise noted.
See The Trojan War above.
See Dido's rainstorm above.
See Pyramus and Thisbe above.
Hercules, after having slain the Hydra, used its blood to make poisoned arrows. When the centaur Nessus attempted to kidnap his bride Deianeira, Hercules shot Nessus with one of the arrows, and the dying Nessus gave his bloodstained shirt to Deianeira, telling her to give it to Hercules as a love charm. She did so, and the leftover poison in Nessus's blood afflicted Hercules with a burning sensation all over his body, driving him so mad with pain that he opted to be burned alive on a pyre rather than to continue to live. The fire burned away his mortal flesh, and he rose to Olympus as a god. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.
Mythical Assyrian queen believed to have founded Babylon. She is noted for her beauty, wisdom, and sexual desire, and is reputed to have made incest legal in order to marry her brother and preserve the royal line in that way. During the Middle Ages she was often cited as an example of sexual excess.
See Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. Byblis is a woman who fell in love with her brother; when she revealed her desire to him, he spurned her, and she fled out of shame and sorrow. She eventually found her way to a mountaintop, where her tears flowed so hard they cut channels in the rock. She was eventually turned into a fountain.
According to legendary Roman history, a Vestal Virgin raped by Mars, and the mother of Romulus and Remus. See Livy, History of Rome 1.4.
A beautiful maiden who was an excellent huntress and the fastest runner in Arcadia. She was one of the party that hunted the Caledonian boar. She would challenge all suitors to a foot race - the one who beat her first would marry her, but if she beat the suitors, they would be executed. Hippomenes loved Atalanta and accepted the challenge, praying to Venus for help. Venus gave him several golden apples; he threw the apples off the track to distract her from her course, and defeated her in the race (Ovid, Metamorphoses 10, suggests that she was somewhat willing to be deceived after seeing his youth and beauty). However, while hunting one day, they were overcome with desire for each other and made love in a grove sacred to Cybele; the goddess turned them both into lions for desecrating the grove.
A nymph and servant of Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt. She was expected to remain a virgin, but was seduced by Jupiter and became pregnant. When bathing, Diana ordered her to remove her clothing, which exposed her pregnancy; a jealous Juno turned her into a bear. Her son Arcas, when grown to the age of 15, almost killed her in a hunt, but Jupiter stayed his hand and placed them into the sky as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - The Great and Small Bears - which we call the Big and Little Dippers. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.
Two possibilities exist for this reference. Candace was a queen in India who met and seduced Alexander the Great on his militry expedition, as depicted in several medieval versions of the Alexander legend. However, Chaucer may also be referring to Canace, daughter of Aeolus the wind god, who fell in love with her brother Macareus. She bore him a son, and Aeolus forced her to kill herself with a sword. See Ovid, Heroides 11.
Daughter of King Nisus of Megara. The city was besieged by the Cretans under King Minos, but it could not be taken, since Nisus had a lock of hair that would protect the city as long as he kept it on. Scylla fell in love with Minos, cut off her father's lock while he was sleeping, and offered it as a gift to Minos, but he spurned her. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.
In Arthurian legend, Iseult (Isolt, Isolde) is espoused to King Mark; Tristan (Tristram) is sent to bring her to England from Ireland, but a misdirected love potion makes them fall in love. They become separated and Tristan begins to love another woman named Iseult. When wounded in battle and dying, Tristran calls for the first Iseult, with whom he is still in love, but is told she is not coming, and he dies of despair. When she arrives and finds him dead, she dies of grief. This story is very much like Pyramus and Thisbe in some ways.
Roman god of male sexuality; he is often depicted with a large and erect phallus. In PF 253, Chaucer refers to Ovid's Fasti, Book 1, in which Priapus, enamored of the nymph Lotis, sees her sleeping under a tree and prepares to ravish her, but an ass owned by Silenus, king of the woodland gods, brays and awakens her, and she flees from him. He is left behind with an erection ("scepter in hand," as Chaucer puts it), but is immediately seen by the other nymphs and satyrs and is subjected to a great deal of laughter. For this reason, an ass was sacrificed to Priapus every year in Lampsacus to pacify the deity.
A Roman general who defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars and was given the name Africanus to celebrate his victory. He is a historical figure, but Cicero depicts him as a guide to his grandson, Scipio the Younger, in the dream vision in Book 6 of Cicero's Republic. Africanus is the Chaucerian narrator's guide to the Garden of Venus in PF.
Egyptian queen who had a child Caesarion by Julius Caesar and was beloved of Mark Antony, who attempted to set up an alliance with Egypt that helped to precipitate a civil war in Rome. She and Antony were defeated by Octavius Caesar (the future Augustus) at the Battle of Actium, and she chose to take her life by the bite of an asp rather than to be paraded as a captive in a Roman triumph. Although a historical figure, she appears in the Garden of Venus.
See Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. Chaucer gives most of the story, and I will not repeat it here. The major difference is that Chaucer stops just before the end of the story; Alcione runs to the beach in great grief, just at the time Ceyx's body washes up on the beach. She attempts to kill herself, but the gods turn her into a sea bird; the gods pity her grief, and Ceyx is also turned into a bird, and they live on to this day. Eclympasteyr is mentioned in l. 167, and no one knows exactly who this character is - an invention of Chaucer's, a garbled reference to some other classical figure, or something else.
Various figures from the mythology of the Trojan War (see above). Laomedon was the king of Troy, father of Priam, and grandfather of Paris; he sent Hercules to rescue his daughter Hesione from a sea monster, but when he refused to let Hercules marry her, Hercules killed him and offered her as a bride to his friend Telamon.
Medea was a powerful sorceress and daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, the guardian of the Golden Fleece (see above). When Jason and the Argonauts attempted to earn the Fleece, Medea gave them aid in passing Aeëtes's tests, but when he reneged on the promise, she used her magic to make the dragon guardian of the fleece sleep, and Jason was able to take the Fleece. She helped Jason ambush her brother Apsyrtus in an attempt to flee Aeëtes's wrath, and she also helped Jason in a plot to murder King Pelias, the man who had sent the Argonauts out on the quest, expecting them to die. Jason and Medea left Iolcus and went to Corinth, but Medea's reputation as a duplicitious sorceress preceded her, and so Jason divorced her to marry Creusa, the daughter of the Corinthian King Creon. In a rage, Medea slaughtered her children by Jason.
Daughter of Latinus, originally betrothed to Turnus. When Aeneas comes to Italy to found Rome, the gods tell Latinus to marry Lavinia to Aeneas instead of Turnus, but Lavinia's mother Amata, spurred on by Juno and Allecto, refuses the match and eventually stirs up the Latins to war against the Trojan survivors. See Virgil, Aeneid 7.
A historical reference to Octavian (Octavius Caesar), Julius Caesar's adoptive son and the victor in the Roman civil war with Antony and Cleopatra. He went on to become Caesar Augustus. The poet Ovid, in the Tristia, mentions that he has made"carmen et error" (a poem and a mistake - probably the Art of Love or the Cures for Love, and some connection to an imperial scandal), which caused Augustus to exile him to Tomis, a colony near the Black Sea, where he died, miserable that he was so far away from his wife, his library, and the city of Rome.
See above. Chaucer mentions the myth in BD 569.
Sisyphus was the king of Corinth; he was very deceptive, using trickery to prolong his life twice by cheating death. However, he also revealed that Jupiter had ravished the nymph Aegina, and was tormented in Hades for his tale-telling by being forced to roll a large stone up a hill, but just as he approached the top, the stone would slip and roll back down, forcing him to start all over. Tantalus was king of Sipylus, and attempted to please the gods by sacrificing his son Pelops and serving him to them as a feast. He was punished in Hades by being put in a pool of water with a branch of fruit hanging over his head - when he got hungry, the branch would lift up and move the fruit out of his reach, and when he got thirsty, the pool would shrink so that he could not drink (cf. our word tantalizing - allowing one to be so close to, but so far from, a goal). Daedalus was the servant of King Minos (see above); he designed the Labyrinth to contain the Minotaur. Desiring to escape, he and his son Icarus flew away from Crete on homemade wings, but Icarus flew too close to the sun and died when his wings fell apart.
Narcissus was a youth who was so beautiful that everyone who saw him desired him. A spurned youth cursed him to the gods, and Nemesis, goddess of vengeance, made the prayer come true; Narcissus fell in love with himself when he saw his reflection in a pool (cf. our term for excessive self-absorption - narcissism). The nymph Echo would always engage Juno in conversation with endless chatter when Zeus was having an affair with someone, and so when Juno found out, Echo was cursed to only be able to repeat what other people said. She fell in love with Narcissus, but she could not tell him she loved him until he fell in love with himself and said "I love you" over and over to his reflection in the pool. Narcissus eventually died of longing for himself, and Echo faded away until she was only a voice that repeats the last thing she hears. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.
See above. Chaucer mentions the myth in BD 731.
See Ovid, Heroides 2. Phyllis was the daughter of King Sithon of Thrace. She was in love with Demophoön of Melos. He promised to return to her, but took quite a long time to do so; in despair and believing that she had been abandoned, Phyllis hanged herself. Demophoon did eventually return, but found that Phyllis had been turned into an almond tree by the gods. He embraced the tree, and it blossomed.
See above. Chaucer mentions the myth in BD 1081.
Wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus in the legendary history of Rome; see Livy (Tytus Lyvyus), History of Rome 1.57-1.60. Sextus Tarquinius tells Lavinia that if she does not sleep with him, he will kill a servant and Lavinia together and claim that he caught them in a consensual affair. Lavinia, fearing for her reputation, gives in to Sextus. Out of shame, she kills herself, but not before swearing Collatinus and Lucius Junius Brutus to vengeance. Brutus then goes ahead to raise an army and defeat Sextus, ending the early reign of kings and establishing the Roman Republic.
See above. Chaucer mentions the myth at BD 1119.
In BD 1056 ff. Chaucer mentions the historical (but often cited in non-historical ways) figures of Alcibiades, an Athenian general noted for his handsomeness, and Alexander the Great, noted for his military skill in conquering most of the known world, as well as the mythological Hercules, famed for his strength. The Man in Black notes that had he had the peculiar talents of any of these men (and presumably, thereby able to have any woman he wanted), he would still have wanted to love White.
See the Song of Roland. Ganelon is a French traitor. Charlemagne has been campaigning in Spain against the Saracens, and when leaving Spain to reenter France near the pass of Roncesvalles, he leaves the nobles Roland and Oliver in command of the rearguard. Ganelon tells the Saracens where they can catch the rearguard in an ambush, and then, when Roland is blowing his horn to summon help, Ganelon tells Charlemagne that Roland had planned to go hunting and was probably blowing his horn in a hunt. Without reinforcements, the rearguard is wiped out, although Oliver and Roland fight bravely to the end. The Song of Roland is based on a historical event, but the campaign was probably against Basques who were rebelling against Charlemagne, not the Saracens.
Classical name for the west wind; often a figure for springtime. GP line 5.
A historical figure, non-mythological; a former royal chancellor and friend of King Henry II who had been made Archbishop of Canterbury by the king in order to bring the church more in line with royal policy. When Becket began to serve the church's interests above the kings, Henry became angry and exiled him; he was allowed to return to England but continued to oppose Henry. In 1170, Henry in a rage is reputed to have said, "Will no one rid me of this foul priest?", and four of his knights took it as a command to murder Becket; they killed him in the cathedral when he was at prayer. (For a modern dramatization, read Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot.) Henry did penance for his angry outburst and made many concessions to the church after the murder; however, within twenty years the crown was able to get most of its power back. Becket was canonized as a saint, and his shrine in Canterbury Cathedral was a site of pilgrimage. There are many stories of miraculous cures that took place at the shrine, and Chaucer mentions the saint's aid to the sick in GP 17-18.
GP line 336. A historical figure; non-mythological; a classical Greek philosopher who argued that pleasure (in the sense of refined pleasures: food, art, music, literature, etc.) was the highest good. Chaucer describes the Franklin as "Epicurus's own son."
Legendary Greek founder of the art of medicine; eventually deified in classical mythology. Chaucer mentions him in GP line 429. For a complete listing of the medical authorities the Physician is reading, see the Explanatory Notes in the Riverside Chaucer, p. 817.
Legendary king of Athens. He defeated the Amazons in their homeland (Chaucer's "Femenye") and married their queen, Hippolyta. In the Thebaid of Statius, after the single combat between Eteocles and Polyneices (see Seven against Thebes above), Creon, king of Thebes, denies burial to all those who attacked Thebes, which was considered a great sacrilege; the widows of the attackers persuade Theseus to attack the city and allow the dead to be buried. Chaucer probably drew on the myth through the mediation of Boccaccio's Teseida.
Probably a reference to Theophrastus, De nuptiis (On Marriage) or Valerius Maximus, Fact et dicta meorabilia (Memorable deeds and words); possibly also Eustace Deschamps, Miroir de Mariage (A Mirror on Marriage). St. Jerome makes note of Valerius and Theophrastus in his Contra Jovinianum (Epistle against Jovinianus). These works tell of the hardships which married men must face, most stories of which come at the expense of women; they fit Jankyn's personality and treatment of the Wife very closely.
When Dorigen is debating whether or not to give in to Aurelius, Chaucer gives a list of women who face all manner of hardships rather than surrender their chastity, be raped, remarry, or commit adultery. See Explanatory Notes, pp. 900-901 in The Riverside Chaucer.
Last Modified XXI April MMII