nearest to Shakespeare's character, the Master of the Revels.

Of the four lovers, the names of Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena, are of
course classical; Shakespeare would find lives of Lysander and Demetrius in
North's Plutarch. The name of Hermia, who corresponds with Emilia or Emily
of _The Knightes Tale_, as being the lady on whom the affections of the two
young men are set, may have been taken from the legend of Aristotle and
Hermia, referred to more than once by Greene. The name cannot be called
classical, and appears to be a mistranslation of Hermias.[7]

The story of Palamon and Arcite has not been traced beyond Boccaccio, that
fountain of romance, though he himself says the tale of "Palemone and
Arcita" is "una antichissima storia." Possibly the story was taken, as much
of Boccaccio's writing must have been taken, from tradition. Palaemon is a
classical name,[8] and Arcite might be a corruption of Archytas.
Boccaccio's _Teseide_ (the story of Theseus) which was written about 1344,
and may have been first issued wholly or in part under the title of
_Amazonide_, is a poem in the vernacular consisting of twelve books and ten
thousand lines in _ottava rima_.[9]

Chaucer, in the Prologue to _The Legend of Good Women_ (which is presumably
earlier than the _Canterbury Tales_) states that he had already written

" ... al the love of Palamon and Arcyte
Of Thebes, thogh the story is knowen lyte.[10]"

Skeat says "some scraps are preserved in other poems" of Chaucer; he
instances (i) ten stanzas from this _Palamon and Arcite_ in a minor poem
_Anelida and Arcite_, where Chaucer refers to Statius, _Thebais_, xii.
519;[11] (ii) three stanzas in _Trolius and Crheyde_; and (iii) six stanzas