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ATTHALANTE. Atalanta of Tegea was the huntress who joined the Calydonian boar hunt. Her arrow was the first to draw blood from the boar, and when Meleager slew it, he offered her a share of the spoils, the boar's head. As a huntress, she was devoted to Diana. Ovid differentiates between Arcadian Atalanta of the boar hunt (Met VIII.319-333; OM VIII.2170-2359) and Boeotian Atalanta of the swift feet (Met X.560-707; OM X.2094-2437).

The boar hunt of Atthalante and Meleagre appears on the walls of Diana's oratory, KnT 2070-2072. Chaucer may have used the Ovide Moralisé for Cassandra's version of the boar hunt, Tr V.1464-1484, when she interprets Troilus's dream of the boar. [Athalante1: Meleagre]

Atthalante occurs medially, KnT 2070. The doubled consonants indicate an initial unstressed vowel; intrusive h after t was not pronounced.


Ovid, Met, ed. and trans. F.J. Miller, I: 428-429; II: 104-115; OM, ed. C. de Boer, III, deel 30: 161-166; IV, deel 37: 61-67; B.L. Wittlieb, "Chaucer and the Ovide Moralisé." N&Q 217 (1970): 204.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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