"
(27) Ovid ("Metamorphosis", iii. 339-510) is Chretien's
authority.
(28) Cf. L. Sudre, "Les allusions a la legende de Tristan dans la
litterature du moyen age", "Romania", xv. 435 f. Tristan
was famed as a hunter, fencer, wrestler, and harpist.
(29) "The word `Thessala' was a common one in Latin, as meaning
`enchantress', `sorceress', `witch', as Pliny himself tells
us, adding that the art of enchantment was not, however,
indigenous to Thessaly, but came originally from Persia."
("Natural History", xxx. 2).--D.B. Easter, "Magic Elements
in the romans d'aventure and the romans bretons, p. 7.
(Baltimore, 1906). A Jeanroy in "Romania", xxxiii. 420
note, says: "Quant au nom de Thessala, il doit venir de
Lucain, tres lu dans les ecoles au XIIe siecle." See also
G. Paris in "Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 441 note.
Thessala is mentioned in the "Roman de la Violetta", v. 514,
in company with Brangien of the Tristan legend.
(30) Medea, the wife of Jason, is the great sorceress of classic
legend.
(31) This personage was regarded in the Middle Ages as an Emperor
of Rome. In the 13th-century poem of "Octavian" (ed.
Vollmuller, Heilbronn, 1883) he is represented as a
contemporary of King Dagobert!
(32) This commonplace remark is quoted as a proverb of the rustic
in "Ipomedon", 1671-72; id.
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