I. The Legend of Cleopatra. The source of this legend is by no means clear. As Bech points out, some expressions shew that one of the sources was the Epitome Rerum Romanarum of L. Annæus Florus, lib. iv. c. 11; see notes to ll. 655, 662, 679. No doubt Chaucer also consulted Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus, cap. 86, though he makes no special use of the account there given. The story is also in the history of Orosius, bk. iv. c. 19; see Sweet's edition of King Alfred's Orosius, p. 247. Besides which, I think he may have had access to a Latin translation of Plutarch, or of excerpts from the same; see the notes.
It is worth while to note here that Gower (ed. Pauli, iii. 361) has the following lines:—
'I sigh [saw] also the woful quene
Cleopatras, which in a cave
With serpents hath her-self begrave
Al quik, and so was she to-tore,
For sorwe of that she hadde lore
Antonie, which her love hath be.
And forth with her I sigh Thisbe'; &c.
It is clear that he here refers to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, because he actually repeats Chaucer's very peculiar account of the manner of Cleopatra's death. See § [9], p. [xl]. Compare L. G. W. ll. 695-697; and note that, both in Chaucer and Gower, the Legend of Thisbe follows that of Cleopatra; whilst the Legend of Philomela immediately follows that of Ariadne. This is more than mere coincidence. See Bech's essay; Anglia, v. 365.