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EMETREUS, king of India, is Arcita's champion at the tournament in The Knight's Tale. Boccaccio says that Lycurgus comes to aid Arcita, Tes VI.14. Emetreus is Chaucer's invention. Like Arcita, Emetreus shows the influence of the planet Mars in his personality, KnT 2155-2186. [Arcita: Lygurge]

Emetreus is perhaps derived from Demetreus, the name of a Greco-Bactrian prince (third century B.C.) known during the Middle Ages as "King of the Indians." The name occurs three times in medial positions, KnT 2156, 2638, 2645.

Boccaccio, Tutte le opere, ed. V. Branca, II: 421; W.C. Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, 130-134; H.B. Hinckley, "The Grete Emetreus the King of Inde." MLN 48 (1933): 148-149.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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