Skip to main content

Canacee

03Goble_Canacee&TheFalcon_100


Canacee and the Falcon by Warwick Goble

Canacee (KAN-uh-see) is a beautiful princess in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and in the Squire's Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. She is the daughter of King Cambyuskan and Queen Elpheta of Sarai in Tartary, and Chaucer leaves her story unfinished. Apparently the squire wants to tell that her own brother has been fighting in tournaments to win his sister's hand, possibly a nod to Heroides XI by Ovid. Some critics suggest it is not in fact her brother, but a knight with the same name as her brother, and that this would have been mentioned had Chaucer finished the story, and that the shock and confusion was intentional. In her story, Canacee is given gifts by an Arabian king's messenger - a magical mirror, magical ring, and the gift of herbal wisdom. In The Faerie Queene, Canacee is one of four characters that represent friendship, the other three being her brother, sister in law and husband. Canacee's husband here is not her brother, yet his name, Cambell, has been borrowed from Chaucer's character Cambalo. The two stories have a lot of similarities, and in both there is a play on names.

Although it is not certain, Canacee's name may derive from or be influenced by Cauda Ceti, a star in Chaucer's time in the constellation Pisces. Cauda is Latin meaning "tail," while Ceti refers to any large ocean animal, such as a whale or dolphin. An adaptation of the meaning is "whale's tail," although it originally meant the tail star of the whale constellation, since the constellation Cetus is known as "The Whale." Another possibility is a Greek name, Canace, presumably pronounced the same way, which means "child of the wind" according to an entry in Baby Name Encyclopedia: The Perfect Baby Name Adviser by Sylvie Nicole. Canacee is pronounced KAN-uh-see. It is not, and has not to my knowledge, been used as a baby name. A potential nickname is Cacee (Casey).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sailor Moon Baby Names

As a long-time fan girl of Sailor Moon, I was thrilled to hear about a potential reboot of the series, which was supposed to be in 2013 and has now been pushed to 2014. It's been over 20 years since Sailor Moon first aired, but many still get a warm fuzzy feeling when they think of the show. What is not often mentioned is how well researched Takeuchi's name choices were. She covered gems, minerals, astrology, mythology and creative word choices. Today I'll talk about Sailor Moon names. Usagi Tsukino- Bunny - Serena - Princess Serenity - Sailor Moon Usagi means "rabbit" in Japanese, referring to the Japanese legend of the rabbit on the moon, and Tsukino means "moon." In the translation of the comics, Usagi was renamed Bunny appropriately. Keeping with the mythological aspects of the moon and both Greek and Roman moon goddesses, Usagi's character was given the concept of "serene," which gave her the name Serena in the American TV series (a...
3 comments
Read more

Galician Baby Names

I grew up on a street that was named an Italian variant of Roger. When I got married and we bought our first house, it turned out to be on Roger Street. Once noting that coincidence, I started searching for other variants of the name. However, female variants turned out to be pretty nonexistent. Save for Roxeria, which I later discovered was the Galician female form, possibly pronounced rohz-AIR-ee-uh. That led me to a few lists of female Galician names, ranging from common to rare. Here is a sampling of names not often heard here in the states... Albina Alda Alma Alodia Aloia Amada Amadora Amalia Amparo Anisia Antia Araceli Aranzazu Artemisa Avelina Azucena Baia Balbina Baltasara Beatriz Benvida Berenice Bieita Branca Braulia Caetana Carola Casilda Casimira Ceferina Celsa Cipriana Cira Clorinda Coralia Cornelia Cosima Davinia Delfina Desideria Dionisia Dominga Dorinda Dorotea Dositea Edelmira Edenia Elba Elvira Emiliana Etelvina ...
2 comments
Read more

Melisande, Melisende

The cover of E. Nesbit's Melisande Melisande (MAY-lee-sahnd French, English tend to say MELL-iss-ahnd)  is the French variant of Amalswintha, and the inspiration for the English name Millicent, meaning "strong worker." There has been some confusion on the name's connection to Melissa, meaning "honey bee." There's a possibility that each spelling variation has a different origin - Melisande from Melissa and perhaps Melisande as cognate with Millicent, but that is speculation, and there could be absolutely no connection to Melissa at all. Melisende was a popular name in France in the Middle Ages. This name has quite the list of credentials, including a play, opera, and fairy tale. Besides the play  Pelléas and Mélisande  by Maeterlinck, the opera by Debussy, and the fairy tale mentioned above, Melisande was the alias of a character in the Broadway show Bells are Ringing , a handmaid in the book Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm, a character in The G...
5 comments
Read more