1. Cleopatra. 2. Thisbe. 3. Dido. 4. and 5. Hypsipyle and Medea. 6. Lucretia. 7. Ariadne. 8. Philomela. 9. Phyllis. 10. Hypermnestra (unfinished). _After which_, 11. Penelope. 12. Briseis. 13. Hermione. 14. Deianira. 15. Laodamia. 16. Helen. 17. Hero. 18. Polyxena (see the Ballad). 19. _either_ Lavinia (see the Ballad), _or_ Oenone (mentioned in Ovid, and in the House of Fame). 20. Alcestis. Since the list of stories in Ovid's Heroides is the best guide to the whole passage, it is here subjoined. In this list, the numbers refer to the letters as numbered in Ovid; the italics shew the stories which Chaucer actually wrote; the asterisk points out such of the remaining stories as he happens to mention in the present enumeration; and the dagger points out the ladies mentioned in his Prologue to the Legend of Good Women. 1. Penelope Ulixi.*+ 2. _Phyllis Demophoonti._*+ 3. Briseis Achilli.* 4. Phaedra Hippolyto. 5. Oenone Paridi. 6. _Hypsipyle Iasoni_;*+ 12. _Medea Iasoni_.* 7. _Dido Aeneae._*+ 8. Hermione Orestae.* 9. Deianira Herculi.* 10. _Ariadne Theseo._*+ 11. Canace Macareo*+ (_expressly rejected_). 13. Laodamia Protesilao.*+ 14. _Hypermnestra Lynceo._*+ 15. Sappho Phaoni. [139] 16. Paris Helenae; 17. Helena Paridi.*+ 18. Leander Heroni; 19. Hero Leandro.*+ 20. Acontius Cydippae; 21. Cydippe Acontio. Chaucer's method, I fear, was to plan more than he cared to finish. He did so with his Canterbury Tales, and again with his Treatise on the Astrolabe; and he left the Squire's Tale half-told. According to his own account (Prologue to Legend of Good Women, l. 481) he never intended to write his Legend _all at once_, but only 'yeer by yere.' Such proposals are dangerous, and commonly end in incompleteness. To Tyrwhitt's question--'are we to suppose that they [i. e. the legends of Penelope and others] have been lost?' the obvious answer is, that they were never written. Chaucer alludes to Ovid's Epistles again in his House of Fame, bk. i., where he mentions the stories of Phyllis, Briseis, _Oenone_ (not mentioned _here_), Hypsipyle, Medea, Deianira, Ariadne, and Dido; the last being told at some length. Again, in the Book of the Duchesse, he alludes to Medea, Phyllis, and Dido (ll. 726-734); to Penelope and Lucretia (l. 1081); and to Helen (l. 331). As for the stories in the Legend which are not in Ovid's Heroides, we find that of Thisbe in Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. iv; that of Philomela in the same, bk. vi; whilst those of Cleopatra and Lucretia are in Boccaccio's book De Claris Mulieribus, from which he imitated the title 'Legend _of Good Women_,' and derived also the story of Zenobia, as told in the Monkes Tale. However, Chaucer also consulted other sources, such as Ovid's Fasti (ii. 721) and Livy for Lucretia, &c. See my Introduction to the Legend in vol. iii. pp. xxv., xxxvii.