ARCITA, ARCITE is the young knight in The Knight's Tale and Anelida and Arcita. In The Knight's Tale Arcita falls in love with Emily; in Anelida and Arcita he loves and betrays Anelida.
Arcita is very much like Palamon, his cousin and 'felawe' or close friend, in The Knight's Tale. Theseus imprisons both knights after he has defeated Creon, but Arcita breaks out of prison on the third of May. Like Palamon, he has fallen in love with Emily, the young Amazon who is Theseus's sister-in-law. Returning to Thebes, Arcita suffers from hereos or love-sickness, and he returns to Athens after a year or two, taking the name Philostrate, which means "destroyed by love." By then, Palamon has also broken out of prison, and he encounters Arcita on May Day, as he observes May Day ceremonies in the woods. The two fight over Emelie. Here Theseus finds them up to their ankles in blood and decrees a tournament for the love of Emelye. Arcita is devoted to Mars, and Theseus builds an altar and oratory to the god in his honor. Here Arcita prays for victory in the tournament, and he wins. Saturn sends a fury from Pluto's realm to frighten Arcita's horse, and Arcita falls. He dies later from his injuries, and thus he loses his life and Emelye. W.C. Curry points out that Chaucer follows medieval astrology in building Arcita's character as a personality influenced by Mars. In Anelida and Arcite the hero is no longer faithful in love but causes the young queen Anelida great distress; he is portrayed as "the fals Arcite." [Anelida: Argus1: Emelie: Mars: Palamon: Philostrate]
Chaucer took the name from Boccaccio's Il Teseide delle Nozze d'Emilia; Boccaccio, in his turn, may have found the name in the Byzantine epic, Digenis Akritas, where the name Akrites is a Byzantine designation of knights who defended their country against the Muslims. The form Arcita occurs eleven times, only in The Knight's Tale, always in medial positions, KnT 1013, 1281, 1336, 1497, 2155, 2256, 2258, 2421, 2424, 2428, 2761. Arcite occurs seven times in The Knight's Tale with initial stress on the second syllable and elided final -e, thus giving the word two syllables, KnT 1116, 1628, 2368, 2436, 2582, 2658, 2815; thirty-one times in medial positions, sometimes with final syllabic -e, sometimes without, depending on the stresses in the line to even out the meter, KnT 1080, 1112, 1126, 1145, 1152, 1211, 1276, 1344, 1348, 1355, 1393, 1488, 1525, 1528, 1540, 1580, 1596, 1627, 1636, 1698, 1791, 2315, 2676, 2688, 2705, 2743, 2855, 2858, 2939, 2951, 3059; nineteen times in final rhyming position, KnT 1031, 1202, 1210, 1333, 1379, 1449, 1519, 1557, 1657, 1724, 1871, 2094, 2628, 2633, 2639, 2673, 2742, 2873, 2891. The name occurs once initially in Anelida and Arcite, Anel 333; it appears nine times in medial positions, Anel 91, 106, 140, 141, 155, 168, 179, 323, 349; and seven times in final rhyming position, with silent final -e, Anel 11, 49, 109, 175, 198, 210, 264. "The Love of Palamon and Arcite," LGW F 420, LGW G 408, appears in a short list of Chaucer's works and is a reference to The Knight's Tale.