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ARGYVE1 is the name of Criseyde's mother, Tr IV.762.

Neither Boccaccio nor Benoît mentions a mother for Criseyde.

Chaucer may have taken the name from Statius's Thebaid V.1509. Susan Schibanoff suggests that medieval etymology linked Argia/Argyve with a synonym for providentia. It is thus a redendnama, or "speaking name," which reveals the character of the person named. [Calcas: Creseyde]


S. Schibanoff, "Argus and Argive: Etymology and Characterization in Chaucer's Troilus." Speculum 51 (1976): 647-658.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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