fighting in disguise, at a tournament that has been put on especially for the purpose of selecting a husband for this young queen whom he loves, is treated slightly differently from its source. The anonymous author of this Middle English poem chooses to try to rationalise this behaviour, where the original author Hue de Rotelande is happy to point to its irrationality. However, the "lack of motivation for the hero's deception and delay does not detract significantly from the poem." A fifteenth century, 2,346-line couplet version of the tale, called The Lyfe of Ipomydon, is found in MS Harley 2252 and also in two printed copies by Wynkyn de Worde, one of them incomplete. Studies of this version, as well as the tail-rhyme romance in MS Chetham 8009 (Manchester), suggest that these poems may have been composed principally for reading aloud to an assembled audience, rather than solely for private reading. There is also a Middle English prose version of Ipomedon, dating to the fifteenth century and found (incomplete) in the fifteenth century vellum MS Longleat 257. Plot (This summary is based upon the tail-rhyme romance Ipomadon found in MS Chatham 8009 (Manchester).) The majority of the character's names in this medieval romance are taken from Ancient Greece, via the mid-twelfth century Old French Roman de Thèbes, and the action takes place in southern Italy; once Magna Graecia or Megálē Hellás, "Great Greece". King Melyagere (Meleager) of Sicily has a niece who has assumed power in Calabria at the age of fifteen, and has vowed, to the amused indulgence of her noblemen, to marry a man only if he has proved himself to be the finest knight in the world. Soon, a young man named Ipomadon, who is the son of Ermagynes (Hermogenes), King of Apulia, takes his tutor Talamewe (Ptolomy) with him to the lady's court, having already fallen in love with her from afar. She is known only as 'The Proud' but despite this formidable title, she treats Ipomadon kindly and soon falls in love with him. Ipomadon, however, displays more interest in hunting deer than in warfare and jousting, a fact that is not lost on the other noblemen at her court who begin to make fun of him. She tries to shame him into taking an interest in more manly pursuits, but her rebuke backfires and Ipomadon secretly leaves her court early the next morning with