Note 109 — Chapter IV

"Episode of Julia and Proteus." This episode has been traced to the story of the shepherdess Felismena, in Montemayor's "Diana." But Shakespeare may have taken some hints also from Warner. Opheltes (Proteus) married (not betrothed) to the virtuous Alcippe (Julia), goes to "Sardis," where he becomes acquainted (in the same manner as Greene's Francesco) with the courtesan Phœmonoe (Greene's Infida). Alcippe hears of it, and wants at least to be able to see her husband; she enters the service of the courtesan, and there suffers a moral martyrdom. Opheltes is ruined, and, in words which Greene nearly copied, "Phœmonoe not brooking the cumbersome haunt of so beggerly a guest, with outragious tearms flatly forbad him her house." Alcippe makes herself known, and all ends well for the couple.