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SATAN, SATHANAS. Satan is the name Lucifer acquired after he fell from heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15; Job 1:6).

Absolon vows his soul to Sathanas in hope of revenge for the misplaced kiss, MillT 3750. Satan knows how to manage women, MLT 365-367. Satan tempts the young knight with hot love for Custance, MLT 582-602. Custance has no champion except he who bound Satan, MLT 631-635. Satan bound appears in Revelation 20:12, Inf XXXIV.28-29, Ovide Moralisé XII.4293-4300. Sathanas appears as a yeoman to the summoner in The Friar's Tale. The Summoner retorts by giving a picture of friars under the tail of Sathanas, SumT 1685-1691. The Prioress says that Sathanas made his nest in the hearts of the Jews and encouraged them to take action against the schoolboy, PrT 558-564. The Monk's first tragedy tells of Lucifer's fall and how he became Sathanas, MkT 1999-2006. The Parson quotes St. Paul that Sathanas can transform himself into an angel of light, ParsT 894-895, and quotes II Corinthians 11:14. The poet dares not say that marriage is the chain of Satanas, but he dares to say that were Satan unbound, he would never be bound again, Bukton 9-16. [Lucifer2]

The name in Hebrew means "adversary." Satan, the English variant, occurs once, initially, MLT 582; twice in medial positions, MLT 365, 634; Sathanas, the medieval Latin variant, appears six times in medial positions, MLT 598; SumT 1686, 1687, 1689; MkT 200; Bukton 10; and four times in final rhyming position, MillT 3750; FrT 1526, 1685; PrT 558, and ParsT 895.


Dante, The Divine Comedy, ed. and trans. C.S. Singleton, I, 1: 362-363; F.C. Jennings, Satan, His Person, Work, Place and Destiny; B.G. Koonce, "Satan the Fowler." MS 21 (1959): 176-184; T.H. Spencer, "Chaucer's Hell: a Study of Medieval Convention." Speculum 2 (1927): 177-200; B.L. Witlieb, "Chaucer and the Ovide Moralisé." N&Q 215 (1970): 206.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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