at Theseus "woo'd"
Hippolyta "with his sword." Later in the play we learn that the fairy King
and Queen not only are acquainted with court-scandal, but are each involved
with the past histories of Theseus and Hippolyta (II. i. 70-80).

Apart from these incidents in Theseus' life, Chaucer supplies the dramatist
with all he requires in the opening of _The Knightes Tale_, which we shall
discuss in full shortly.[1]

"Whylom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duke that highte[2] Theseus;
Of Athenes he was lord and governour,
And in his tyme swich a conquerour,
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.
Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne;
What with his wisdom and his chivalrye,
He conquered al the regne[3] of Femenye,
That whylom was y-cleped[4] Scithia;
And weddede the quene Ipolita,
And broghte hir hoom with him in his contree
With muchel glorie and greet solempnitee,
And eek hir yonge suster Emelye.
And thus with victorie and with melodye
Lete I this noble duke to Athenes ryde,
And al his hoost, in armes, him besyde.
And certes, if it nere[5] to long to here,
I wolde han told yow fully the manere,
How wonnen was the regne of Femenye
By Theseus, and by his chivalrye;
And of the grete bataille for the nones
Betwixen Athenes and Amazones,
And how asseged[6] was Ipolita,
The faire hardy quene of Scithia ..."

Egeus, whom Shakespeare makes a courtier of Theseus and father to Hermia,
is in the classical legend Aegeus, father of Theseus; both Plutarch and
Chaucer so mention him.

The name of Philostrate also comes from Chaucer, where, as we shall see, it
is the name adopted by Arcite when he returns to court in disguise, to
become first "page of the chamber" to Emelye, and thereafter chief squire
to Theseus. It is in this latter capacity that Chaucer's "Philostrate" is
nearest to Shakespeare's character, the Master of the Revels.

Of the four lovers, the names of Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena, are of
course classical; Shakespeare would find lives of Lysander and Demetrius in
North's Plutarch. The name of Hermia, who corresponds with Emilia or Emily
of _The Knightes Tale_, as being the lady on whom the affections of the two
young men are set, may have been taken from the legend of Aristotle and
Hermia, referred to more than once by Greene. The name cannot be called
classical, and appears to be a mistranslation of Hermias.[7]

The story of Palamon and Arci