1884. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 157–158.
[London]
Monday– [14 April 1845] [1]
Dearest cousin
If you knew the pleasure I have in giving any help to your friend, [2] you would not think of weighing out your scruples so nicely. And besides, the Prometheus left me on the scent of translation,—& just now I have a transitory fancy to it which is very convenient! To prove this I will tell you, that, within this fortnight, out of mere pure self will, I have “done into English” nearly the whole of the first canto of the Inferno in the Dantesque metre, [3] just to try it, .. & also (besides various other things of the sort) the whole of the poem ‘Adonis’ I named to you– So that any part of this ‘Adonis’ which is found most suitable to the classical album, is at the service of the editor, & at yours, & no thanks due to me! [4] It was simply a caprice. And if I might do the Polyphemus of Theocritus, I shd like it besides– But you really must explain about Psyche & Cupid. You leave me as much in the dark as ever, & as possible, by your note,—unless I am desired to translate the prose of Apuleius into English verse, which wd be very awkward I fancy, … although, if I remember right, something of the sort has been done with the epistles of Aristænetus, also with Philostratus. [5] But you wd not advise such a step,—would you?—& I feel unwilling to take it without a precise instruction.
And the alternative is difficult,—because you see, the story of Cupid & Psyche, is not found in the ancient poets,—being the invention of Apuleius who was comparatively a modern. The ancient tradition of the relation between Love & the Soul, to which Plato refers, does not amount to a myth, & furnished a mere stone in the foot of Apuleius, as a που στω. [6] At least, this is my impression– Tell me what to do.
I send you the letters I had this morning, which I ought’nt to send to you, .. (two of them, for one reason,—) but I want you to be pleased with what has pleased me– To Mr Lowell I had sent the last ‘Poems’ because I had had some like gifts from himself. Mrs Sigourney’s letter is quite spontaneous. Keep them all till you come again. Harriet Martineau’s will interest you as it does me– [7]
Yes!—& think of my forgetting to tell you when I saw you last, that I had heard again & at length (at full kindness) from Mrs Coleridge, [8] & that I am going to answer her letter.
And now goodbye–
Let me have instructions at your leisure about Apuleius—& I shd like to know some day, how many lines are admissable.
Ever most affectionately yours
EBB–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to letters from Harriet Martineau (no. 1883) and Sara Coleridge, whom EBB answered in no. 1889.
2. Anne Thomson (later Mrs. Emil Braun), who was the “niece” of Sarah Bayley, Kenyon’s good friend. (For further details of Anne Thomson’s and Sarah Bayley’s lives, see pp. 325–328.)
3. See Reconstruction, D1210–1213; this translation was not published in EBB’s lifetime.
4. For an explanation and complete list of the translations EBB made for Miss Thomson’s “classical album,” see Appendix IV, pp. 397–398.
5. The second-century Greek sophist who wrote “Letters.” Aristænetus was a fifth-century Greek epistolographer. EBB had copies of both these writers’ works; see Reconstruction, A1847 and A77, respectively.
6. “Place to stand.” Comment attributed to Archimedes: “Give me a firm place to stand and I will move the earth” (see letters 269 and 1662).
7. Letter 1883. For EBB’s response to Lydia Sigourney, see no. 1902. EBB had written to James Russell Lowell in July 1844 (see no. 1663) sending him a copy of Poems (1844); unfortunately, however, Lowell’s letter to her has not survived.
8. For EBB’s response to Sara Coleridge’s letter, see no. 1889.
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