402. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 286–287.

[Hope End]

March 8th 1831–

My dear Mr Boyd,

All the commencement of the 20th book is retained by Knight, down to “Tossos ara” [1] &c which is omitted, together with the eight subsequent lines. He says in a note that ιοι, not ια, is the Homeric Greek for arrows; and that the nine lines have been forged & inserted by some one who misunderstood the meaning of lines 54 & 55,—in the last of which, sumballo [2] occurs,—a word of an active sense always,—never of a neutral one. Farther on, Mr Knight omits 44 lines, from line 112—an episodium molestum, [3] as he calls it,—considering that an excuse for molesting it!– I will not molest you any longer now, as I am to do so in a different way tomorrow.

Yours affectionately

E B Barrett.

Publication: EBB-HSB, p. 120 (in part).

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. “So great [the noise]” (Iliad, XX, 66).

2. “To join battle.”

3. “Troublesome episode.” This note, together with the others mentioned by EBB, occurs on p. 61 of the 1820 edition of Payne Knight’s Carmina Homerica.

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