1. Interesting, but felt incomplete. How do these stories (myths) evolve?

2. Northrup Frye argues that there are 4 fundamental plots in storytelling, representing the 4 seasons: Spring (romance), Summer (comedy), Fall (tragedy), and Winter (satire). But he also suggests that myth — the stories you allude to in your article — is the Ur-Story. Stories, he suggests, “evolve” from myth to romance to comedy to tragedy to satire.

3. I never realized before that the Tasso myth you reference here (of the maiden disguised as a knight) was more famously re-created in Spenser’s Faerie Queene (Book 3) as Britomart — the knight of Chastity. Spenser credits Tasso for much of his inspiration.