Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/103

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PROMETHEUS BOUND.
73

Note 14. Page 36.

And none, save I, contrived the linen-wing'd,
Sea-wand'ring ships.

Euripides ascribes the invention of navigation to some one of the gods. See the speech of Theseus in the Supplices, from vs. 201 to 213. Euripides must have had Prometheus in his mind. Among the obligations, due from man to deity, he records—

πόντου τε ναυστολήμαθ´ ὡς διαλλαγὰς
ἒχοιμεν ἁλλήλοισιν, ὦν πέωοιτο γῆ.
ἄ δ´ ἒστ´ ἃσημα κοὐ σαφῆ, γινώσκομεν
εἰς πῦρ βλέποντες, καὶ καρὰ σπλάγχνων πτύχας
μάντεις προσημαίνουσιν, οἰωνῶν τ´ ἂπο.

Sophocles, in the first choral ode of his Œdipus Coloneus, ascribes the invention to Neptune.

Note 15. Page 37.

What saith the hornëd virgin, hearest thou?

Hermann and Elmsley, followed by Blomfield, attach this line to the preceding speech of Io: and after all, I have ventured to adhere to the old editions. It certainly does seem to me finer and more characteristic, that Io, hurried on by the vehemence of anguish, should appear to have forgotten the presence of Prometheus, than that she should give utterance to anguish, with the mere object of describing it to him. Bishop Blomfield observes, that in the case of this line being attributed to the Chorus, to the Chorus must also

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