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ADRIANE, ADRYANE. Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus when he arrived in Crete. She saved his life by providing him with a ball of thread. He took the thread with him into the Labyrinth when he went to slay the Minotaur. After he killed the monster, Theseus followed the thread back to the entrance of the Labyrinth. Ariadne sailed away with him, but he abandoned her on the island of Naxos. Bacchus pitied her and made her his wife, and the gods set her crown among the stars (Her X; Met VIII.169-182; OM VIII.1083-1394).

The Man of Law says that Chaucer has written the complaint of Adriane, MLI 67, a reference to LGW 1886-2227. Theseus would have been devoured had not Adriane helped him and had pity on him, HF I.407-427. Adriane appears in the catalogue of faithful women, LGW F 268, LGW G 222. [Dedalus: Minos: Phasipha: Phedra: Theseus]

Adriane, OF variant by metathesis, occurs also in Machaut's Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, 2707-2806, which Chaucer knew. Adryane is a spelling variant.

The name never occurs initially. It appears ten times in medial positions, MLI 67; HF I.411; LGW F 268, LGW G 222; LGW 1969, 1927, 2078, 2171, 2175, 2545; five times in final rhyming position: HF I.407; LGW 2146, 2158, 2181, 2460.


Guillaume de Machaut, Oeuvres, ed. E. Hoepffner, I: 230-233; S.B. Meech, "Chaucer and the Ovide Moralisé--A Further Study." PMLA 46 (1931): 183-184; Ovid, Her, ed. and trans. G. Showerman, 120-130; ibid., Met, ed. and trans. F.J. Miller, I: 418-419; OM, ed. C. de Boer, III, deel 30, no. 3: 134-142.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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