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PROTHESELAUS. Protesilaus was commander of the contingent of troops from Phylace during the Trojan War. He was killed when the Greeks landed at Troy (Iliad II.695-699). Homer says that Protesilaus left his marriage "half-completed," and Ovid develops this aspect in Heroides XIII. Chaucer's sources also include Jerome, Epistola adversus Jovinianum (Letter Against Jovinian) I.45 (PL 23: 275).

Laodomya, wife of Protheselaus, refused to live another day after he was killed, FranklT 1445-1446. [Dorigen: Ladomya]

Protheselaus occurs in final rhyming position, FranklT 1446; intrusive h after t was not pronounced.

G. Dempster, "Chaucer at Work on the Complaint in the Franklin's Tale." MLN 52 (1937): 6-16; Homer, Iliad, ed. and trans. A.T. Murray, I: 102-103; K. Hume, "The Pagan Setting of The Franklin's Tale and the Sources of Dorigen's Cosmology." SN 44 (1972): 289-294; Ovid, Her, ed. and trans. G. Showerman, 158-171; J. Sledd, "Dorigen 's Complaint." MP 45 (1947): 36-45.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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