Lyeys 229 



between 1366 and 1370?) ; possibly it is from this intercourse 

 that Chaucer's notions of Morocco may have proceeded. 



Chaucer's Belmarye is, then, Morocco. Palamon is com- 

 pared to a Hon of that country {K. T. 2630-33) : 



Ne in Belmarye ther nis so fel leoun, 

 That hunted is, or for his hunger wood, 

 Ne of his praye desireth so the blood, 

 As Palamon to sleen his fo Arcite. 



Lyeys, early October, 1367. Froissart's^ and Marco Polo's^ 

 Layas, Ariosto's^ Laiazzo, also known as Ayas, Ayacio, Aiazzo, 

 Giazza, Glaza, la Jazza,^ I'Ajasso, la Giazza,^ VA'ias,^ is per- 

 haps most properly called Ayas, a name derived from Lat. 2Egce, 

 Gr. Xl-yai? It lies in the vicinity of Issus, famous for the battle 

 between Alexander and Darius. Ayas is on the bay of the same 

 name {Cent. Atlas, map loi, F 4), opening out of the western 

 part of the Gulf of Alexandretta, or Scanderoon, in the mediaeval 

 kingdom of Lesser Armenia. In the latter part of the 13th 

 century it became one of the chief places for the shipment of 

 Asiatic wares arriving through Tabriz.® As Marco Polo says^: 

 'All the spicery [spices, drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, 

 etc.^^], and the cloths of silk and gold, and the other valuable 

 wares that come from the interior, are brought to that city. And 

 the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come 

 thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack. And 

 whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of the East), 

 merchants and others, they take their way by this city.'^^ Con- 

 quered from the Christians by the Arabs of Egypt in 1322, but 



^ Kervyn 20. 567. 



' Prol, chap. 8. 



"OW. Fur. 19. 54- i (cf. 20. 58). 



* Marco Polo i. 16. 

 ""Bihl., p. 310. 

 *Le Roulx, p. 23. 



' Pape, Wort, der Gr. Eigennamen i. 28. 



* Marco Polo i. 16; cf. Le Roulx, p. 67. 

 ''Bk. I, chap. I. 



" I. 45. 



''Cf. BibL, pp. 310, 311, 315, 319, 323; Marco Polo, p. 41; cf. Heyd 

 I. 404, 598-9; 2. 79-81, 85-6, 88-94. 



