5412. RB to Lord Houghton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 81.
.19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace,
June 29. ’64.
Dear Houghton,
These are the passages about which we spoke just now, [1] & which I mentioned to Palgrave: [2]
Ιδου, ῾ολιγον πυρ ῾ηλικην ῾υλην αναπτει και ῾η γλωσσα πυρ. [3] James III. 5–6—& see context.
Ιστω [4] δε μηδεις ταυθ' ἁ σιγασται χρεων·
μικρου γαρ εκ λαμπτηρος Ιδαιον λεπας
πρησειεν αν τις, και προς ανδσρ' ειπων ἐνα
πυθοιντ' αν 'αστοι [4] παντες ὡν κρυπτειν χρεων. [5]
Fragment of the Ino of Euripides quoted by Stobæus, [6] Plutarch [7] & one of the Scholiasts to Pindar. [8] Jowett had never heard of the co-incidence; you seemed to fancy that it was not new to you: I want you, therefore, if ever you meet with a reference to it, to kindly let me know.
Yours very truly
R Browning
By the way, the famous φθειρουσιν ηθη χρησθ' ὁμιλιαι κακαι, [9] is given to Euripides as well as Menander [10] by one of the two authors who quote it, [11] besides St Paul. [12]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Trinity College, Cambridge.
1. RB had been at the Houghtons’; see letter 5410.
3. James 3:5–6: “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire.”
4. We have replaced RB’s ligature with its equivalent “στ.”
5. Cf. Euripides, Ino, 411, trans. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp: “And let no one know these things which ought to be kept quiet. Just as one could set fire to the slopes of Ida from a small torch, so from one’s word to a single man all citizens could find out (what one ought to conceal).”
6. Stobaeus, 3, 41, 1. Stobaeus was the “author of an anthology of excerpts from poets and prose-writers. … The work was probably composed in the fifth century A.D.; it consisted originally of four books” (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1957).
7. Plutarch, Moralia, “Concerning Talkativeness,” 10, 507b.
8. i.e., commentary on Pindar, Pythian Odes, 3, 66 (see Euripides, Ino, 411).
9. “Bad company ruins good morals” (Euripides, Dramatic Fragments, 1024, trans. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp).
10. Menander (see letter 4576, note 8), Thais (fragment).
11. One of these is Socrates Scholasticus (fl. 5th century A.D.) in his Ecclesiastical History, 3, 16, where he identifies Euripides as the originator of the passage in I Corinthians.
12. Cf. I Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”
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