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ARISTOCLIDES, tyrant of Orchomenos, had a passion for the maiden Stymphalides. On the night her father was murdered, Stymphalides, fearing the tyrant, fled to Diana's temple and clung to the altar, where she was slain. Jerome includes her in his list of virtuous pagan women, Epistola adversus Jovinianum (Letter Against Jovinian) I.41 (PL 23: 272).

Aristoclides the tyrant appears as the villain, FranklT 1387-1394. Chaucer does not make quite clear his part in the story. [Stymphalides]

The form of the name is the Greek patronymic and occurs in final rhyming position, FranklT 1387.

G. Dempster, "Chaucer at Work on the Complaint in the Franklin's Tale." MLN 52 (1937): 16-23; K. Hume, "The Pagan Setting of the Franklin's Tale and the Sources of Dorigen's Cosmology." SN 44 (1972): 289-294.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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