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 Arcite has not been traced beyond Boccaccio, that fountain of romance, though he himself says the tale of "Palemone and Arcita" is "una antichissima storia." Possibly the story was taken, as much of Boccaccio's writing must have been taken, from tradition. Palaemon is a classical name,[8] and Arcite might be a corruption of Archytas. Boccaccio's _Teseide_ (the story of Theseus) which was written about 1344, and may have been first issued wholly or in part under the title of _Amazonide_, is a poem in the vernacular consisting of twelve books and ten thousand lines in _ottava rima_.[9] Chaucer, in the Prologue to _The Legend of Good Women_ (which is presumably earlier than the _Canterbury Tales_) states that he had already written " ... al the love of Palamon and Arcyte Of Thebes, thogh the story is knowen lyte.[10]" Skeat says "some scraps are preserved in other poems" of Chaucer; he instances (i) ten stanzas from this _Palamon and Arcite_ in a minor poem _Anelida and Arcite_, where Chaucer refers to Statius, _Thebais_, xii. 519;[11] (ii) three stanzas in _Trolius and Crheyde_; and (iii) six stanzas in _The Parlement of Foules_, where the description of the Temple of Love is borrowed almost word for word from Boccaccio's _Teseide_.[12] Finally, Chaucer used _Palamon and Arcite_ as the basis of _The Knightes Tale_. By this time, while he retains what folk-lorists call the "story-radical," he has reduced Boccaccio's epic to less than a quarter of its length, and improved it in details. It stands as the first of _The Canterbury Tales_. ANALYSTS OF CHAUCER'S _KNIGHTES TALE_ Old stories relate that once there was a Duke Theseus, lord of Athens, a conqueror of many lands. His latest conquest was "Femenye" (once called Scythia), whose queen Hippolyta he wedded and brought home, accompanied by her young sister Emilia. Now as he drew near to Athens, a company of ladies met him in the way, and laid before him their complaint, to the effect that, their husbands having fallen at the siege of Thebes, Creon the tyrant of Thebes would not let the bodies be buried or burned, but cast them on a heap and suffered the dogs to eat them. Duke Theseus, having sworn to avenge this wrong, sent Hippolyta and Emilia to Athens, and rode to Thebes, where in full battle he fought and slew Creon, and razed the city. The due obsequies were then performed.[13]