Penrice Castle
March 13 1847
My dear Henry
I certainly think that it would add greatly to the clear understanding of your argument, <1> not only in the case of the word Devil, but in several others, if you were to apprize the gentle reader that you assume there to have been a language, from which both the ancient Greeks and the modern Europeans have drawn the words under consideration – I am far from denying that the Greek language may have been, in part, derived from an older tongue, which, also, may have furnished us moderns with certain words, but considering the antiquity of the Greek books we possess, Hesiod & Homer for instance, and considering also that we have no books of this “archaic language” of “primæval times,” it is somewhat startling to find the arguer taking for granted, that the Greeks must have borrowed, because the word in Greek and in modern tongue is similar. Thus, you say, [Greek text] and “daughter” are the same words. Granted, but you say [Greek text] is by no means the root of daughter (why not?) because, the word must have existed in the Teutonic languages from primæval times. I confess I don’t see the sequitur, there is an important step in the argument omitted, that which should go to prove that the Greeks could not possibly have contributed words to the Teutonic nations. Now as regards Diabolus, your objection is that [Greek text] means to calumniate, which is a poor weak idea when applied to the personification of the principle of Evil. Does it not also & much more readily mean to throw down & [Greek text] "The thrower down”? Calumny is but the secondary & metaphorical sense of the word. Be this as it may, I think the plain statement of the argument would run thus. “I think the word [Greek text] of the Greek, is a corruption from some prior, primæval tongue now lost, and is not derived from [Greek text] and [Greek text], because "&c. &c. In this form I think the argument would be clearer, though the reader would naturally be glad to know the grounds of the assumption to startling.
I never heard of the Divis of the Persians, but often of the Iinns, which I suppose the same word as Geneii. You ask whether it can be doublted that the deveil was spoken of by the northern nations & by the eastern ones many ages before the birth of Christ. Do you mean so nomine? I never heard the assertion made before, it is entirely new to me. I have no doubt you will find many who would not only doubt but earnestly deny the fact. For my part I think it more probable that Evil comes from Devil than Devil from Evil.
In regard to Asphodel of Homer being a daffodil I still disagree. The plant is called in modern Greek [Greek text], & that is far more direct evidence than the corrupt Italian asfodillo from affodillo. Besides the plant is described by ([illegible deletion]) Dioscorides (quoted in Sibthorp's Flore Gracæ) as [Greek text] and is the most conspicuous and commonest plant in Greece. I never saw there a daffocil, the only approach to it is the [Greek text]. Sidthorp says of the [Greek text], "in campestribus Graidæ ubique"- I have seen meadows full of it, though fully agreeing with you that the situation is a most "unsuitable" one, yet there they were, & no mistake. Pray what is the Italian name for the plant called by botanists Asphodelus ramosus? If I remember right, the French for a daffodil is asphodil, and the French for asphodil also asphodel. It seems to me a mere confusion of the same word for two different things.
Talking of Constantinople reminds me of the etymology of Stamboul, usually by travellers referred to as [Greek text]. To my mind it is clearly an abbreviation of Constantanopolis, simply omitting the first third fourth & last syllables. your vision of Constantinople through a glass from Ilfracomb [sic] sounds a little romantic. Many years have passed, Eheu fugaces! since those days, upwards of thirty if I mistake not, and even that short time has cut off the three last syllables of this classic name, so that future etymologists will be sorely puzzled to divine the derivation.
I hope you will not be gone before I come to London which will be very soon now.
Believe me yours ever truly
CRM Talbot
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
2 Mansfield St
London
Notes:
1. The reference is to WHFT's newly-published English Etymologies (London: John Murray, 1847).