678 THE SURVIVAL OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
Seven have failed and their widows come to Attica and ask Theseus for help.
Chaucer's Theseus is Duke of Athens, whose virtues are more typical of the ideal
medieval leader than of the classical epic hero. In telling of the theater in which
the jousting is to take place, Chaucer describes three "oratories" of Mars, Venus,
and Diana. We give part of the description of Diana's oratory, which combines
Ovidian mythology and medieval allegory ("The Knight's Tale" 2051-2072):f
Now to the temple of Diane the chaste
As shortly as I can I wol me haste,
To telle yow al the descripcioun.
Depeynted been the walles up and doun
Of hunting and of shamfast chastitee.
Ther saugh I how woful Calistopee [Callisto],
Whan that Diane agreved was with here,
Was turned from a womman til a bere,
And after was she maad the lode-sterre [star];
Thus was it peynt, I can say yow no ferre [further];
Hir sone is eek [also] a sterre, as men may see.
Ther saugh I Dane [Daphne], y-turned til a tree,
I mené nat the goddesse Diane,
But Penneus doughter, which that highte [was called] Dane.
Ther saugh I Attheon [Acteon] an hert [stag] y-maked,
For vengeaunce that he saugh Diane al naked;
I saugh how that his houndes have him caught,
And freten [eaten] him, for that they knewe him naught.
Yet peynted was a litel further-moor,
How Atthalante hunted the wilde boor,
And Meleagre, and many another mo,
For which Diane wroghte him care and wo.Thus Chaucer, drawing on Boccaccio, embellished his tale with legends
drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses.PASTORAL
In Italy pastoral Latin poetry, modeled on the Eclogues of Vergil, was composed
during the Renaissance. In these poems, the form and language are Vergilian,
while the characters have classical names with figures from classical mythology
used for ornament and allusion. The setting is Renaissance Italy; for example,
in the Eclogues of Sannazaro (1458-1530), Vergilian shepherds have become
Neapolitan fishermen, who on one occasion meet with Proteus and a band of
Tritons as they are sailing back from Capri. The classical conventions of pastoral
were widely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England and
France, and they influenced the development of opera and masque, especially
in France.