Arcite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A knight of Thebes in Chaucer's Knight's Tale who, with his cousin Palamon, competes for the love of Emily
2. The Theban warrior in Geoffrey Chaucer's Knight's Tale who rivals his cousin Palamon for the hand of Emily
3. A character in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, a Theban nobleman and cousin of Palamon who vies with him over Emily

Etymology: Arcite is not a common-noun word at all but a proper name, and its story begins in Greek myth before reaching English through Italian. In Boccaccio's "Teseida" (c. 1340s), written in Italian, the two Theban cousins Palamon and Arcite fall in love with Emily, sister of the Amazon queen Hippolyta. Boccaccio drew on Statius's Latin epic "Thebaid," where Arcite and Palamon are sons of Oedipus's line and fight over the throne of Thebes. Chaucer then adapted Boccaccio's story as "The Knight's Tale" in the late 1300s, giving the rivals the names in the form readers still meet today. The name itself is classical in flavour. Statius's Latin text gives the Theban brothers and cousins names of Greek origin, and Chaucer's spelling "Arcite" (with the stress and final vowel of Latin and French usage) is the form English adopted. Because the name belongs to a character rather than a word with a dictionary sense, its use in English has stayed almost entirely literary, tied to Chaucer's poem and the rival relationship at its centre.