NO SURPRISE:John Bryant Gratuitously Instructs us how to say Parthenope Wrong

"SOWING CONFUSION," I WROTE ABOUT JOHN BRYANT IN 1994, my words in my diary imperfectly recalling the King James Version:

Proverbs 6:14 - Frowardness [is] in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.

So in his long review of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE on p. 110 John Bryant instructs us on basic pronunciation:

          "Parthenope (pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee) is now the newly sanctioned title for what we have in the past referred to as Melville’s Burgundy Club Sketches.” [That is what Bryant says.]

OK, not “Par then OPE” but “PAR-thin-OH-pee.” We get it.

But what about the way Melville really might have said it. Or the way Wordsworth said it. Melville knew this poem on Sir Walter Scott’s sailing for Italy:

On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples

By William Wordsworth

A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,

Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light

Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:

Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain

For kindred Power departing from their sight;

While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,

Saddens his voice again, and yet again.

Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might

Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;

Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue

Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,

Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true,

Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,

Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!

My copy of Melville’s own edition is boxed up to go to the Berkshire Athenaeum so I use an Internet version.

Wafting your Charge to soft PAR-thin-OH-pee!

?????????

Why, you wonder, did John Bryant decide he had to instruct everyone how to say Parthenope, and to get it wrong?

We don’t need Bryant to mis-instruct us:

old nonsense poem:

You can ask any dope
How to say Penelope.

But you need John Bryant to teach you how to mis-pronounce Parthenope: "Parthenope (pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee)."

Try HM:

“Neapolitans, ay, ’tis the soul of the shell

Intoning your  Naples, Parthenope’s  bell.