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123 PROMETHEUS BOUND 123

All vainly, I will speak what she endured Ere coming hither, and invoke the past To prove my prescience true.^ And so — to leave 965 A multitude of words, and pass at once To the subject of thy course — when thou hadst gone To those Molossian plains which sweep around Dodona shouldering Heaven, whereby the fane Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, 970

And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave Articulate adjurations — (ay, the same Saluted thee in no perplexed phrase, But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus That shouldst be, there some sweetness took thy sense !) 975

Thou didst rush further onward, stung along The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay,^ And, tost back from it, wast tost to it again In stormy evolution : and know well, In coming time that hollow of the sea seo

Shall bear the name Ionian, and present A monument of lo's passage through,^ Unto all mortals. Be these words the signs Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil Of visible things. The rest to you and her sss

I will declare in common audience,* nymphs. Returning thither where my speech brake off.^ There is a town, Canobus, built upon The earth's fair margin, at the mouth of Nile,

^ The Titan's knowledge of lo's course on her way to Scythia is an indication of his supernatural knowledge.

^ The Ionian Sea, the Adriatic.

3 This etymology, like that of Bosporus, is fanciful.

him who was to release Prometheus.
 * Since lo had asked of her future wandering, and the Chorus of

^ Return to the story broken off at verse 952.