Oxford Reference Browse

the brother of Moses (Moyses), a priest, is cited by the friar in The Summoner's Tale (III.1894) as

one of Chaucer's shorter poems (184 lines, in eight-line stanzas). It is a translation of a prayer to the Virgin

Abigail, the wife of Nabal in the Old Testament, saved her husband (I Sam. 25:1–35) from the wrath of King

the Old Testament patriarch whose story is told in Genesis 11:27–25:18. He was traditionally held to be the image of

the Oxford parish clerk in The Miller's Tale, the rival of the clerk Nicholas for the affections of Alison.

in the Old Testament, the son of King David (2 Sam. 13–19:8), whose beauty and whose splendid head of hair

is used to mean ‘chance happening’ or ‘occurrence’, but in medieval philosophy it also had a more technical sense, deriving

Sloth; one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

‘the scoles of … Achademycis’ [L. Academicis studiis], the ‘Academy’, the school of philosophy founded by Plato (in

a faithful friend of Aeneas (Eneas), ‘a knyght’, mentioned in The House of Fame 226, and in the

(Acheloys is the possessive form), the river Achelous in Greece. Achelous the river god in the form of a bull

Persia (and Armenia), from the mountains of which the Tigris and the Euphrates flow (L. Achamaenes, founder of the first

son of Peleus and Thetis, the greatest of the Greek heroes in the siege of Troy, is mentioned a

the wicked counsellor of King David, who incited Absolon (1) to rebel against his father (2 Sam. 15–17), cited as

the first man according to the Book of Genesis, made by God from earth; the husband of Eve, and

Chaucer's scribe (see book), the subject of the poem Adam (sometimes called ‘Adam Scriveyn’ or, from the rubric

the son of Myrrha (Mirra). His beauty captivated Venus. When, in spite of her warnings, he went hunting

legendary king of Argos, who led the army of the Seven against Thebes (1). He returned home (Anel

Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, fell in love with Theseus, and gave him a thread so that

(236/5– c.183 bc),

Roman consul at the beginning of the Second Punic War and a great general