Me´li (Giovanni), a Sicilian, born at Palermo; immortalized by his eclogues and idylls. Meli is called “The Sicilian Theocritus” (1740-1815).
Much it pleased him to peruse
The songs of the Sicilian Muse—
Bucolic songs by Meli sung.
Longfellow, The Wayside Inn (prelude, 1863).
Meliadus, father of Sir Tristan; prince of Lyonnesse, and one of the heroes of Arthurian romance.—Tristan de Leonois (1489).
*** Tristan, in the History of Prince Arthur, compiled by Sir T. Malory (1470), is called “Tristram;” but the old minnesingers of Germany (twelfth century) called the name “Tristan.”
Mel´ibe (3 syl.), a rich young man married to Prudens. One day, when Melibê was in the fields, some enemies broke into his house, beat his wife, and wounded his daughter Sophie in her feet, hands, ears, nose and mouth. Melibê was furious and vowed vengeance, but Prudens persuaded him “to forgive his enemies, and to do good to those who despitefully used him.” So he called together his enemies, and forgave them, to the end that “God of His endeles mercie wole at the tyme of oure deyinge forgive us oure giltes that we have trespased to Him in this wreeched world.”—Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (1388).
*** This prose tale is a liberal translation of a French story.—See MS. Reg., xix. 7; and MS. Reg., xix. 11, British Museum.
Melibee, a shepherd, and the reputed father of Pastorella. Pastorella married Sir Calidore.—Spenser, Faëry Queen, vi. 9 (1596).
“Melibee” is Sir Francis Walsingham. In the Ruins of Time, Spenser calls him “Melibœ.” Sir Philip Sidney (the “Sir Calidore” of the Faëry Queen) married his daughter Frances. Sir Francis Walsingham died in 1590, so poor that he did not leave enough to defray his funeral expenses.
Melibœus, one of the shepherds in Eclogue i. of Virgil.
Spenser, in the Ruins of Time (1591), calls Sir Francis Walsingham “the good Melibœ;” and in the last book of the Faëry Queen he calls him “Melibee.”