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CIBELLA. Cybele was the Phrygian goddess of nature and fertility. Ovid calls her deum Mater, "mother of gods" (Met X.104, 686), and deum genetrix, "begetter of gods" (Met XIV.536). She wore a turreted crown and drove a lion car (Met X.696, 698-707). Cybele wearing her turreted crown is found in manuscripts of Remigius of Auxerre, Commentum in Martianum Capellam (after 1100).

Cibella made the daisy in honor of Alceste, queen of Thrace, LGW F 530-532, LGW G 518-520. Alceste wears a crown of white daisies as the queen of love, LGW F 212-225, LGW G 146-157. [Alceste]

Cibella, the ME variant of Latin Cybele, appears initially.


P.M. Clogan, "Chaucer's Cybele and the Liber imaginum deorum." PQ 43(1964): 272-274; Ovid, Met, ed. and trans. F.J. Miller, II: 70-71; 114-115; 338-339; J. Seznec, Survival of the Pagan Gods, trans. B.F. Sessions, 167.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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