dark forms were they?" and "Whither have they fled?" and Panthea tells her. Yet these dark forms have just sung who they are, and whither they go; and the introduction says that both Panthea and Ione awaken gradually during the first song, strictly the Voice of Unseen Spirits which precedes the chant of these dark forms and shadows.
VII. Lastly, I may mention here one or two apparent inadvertences which scarcely affect the structure, but seem beyond any now possible textual emendation.
(a) In Act III. sc. iii. we read:—
Asia. Oh, Mother! wherefore speak the name of death?
Cease they to love and move and breathe and speak
Who die?
The Earth. It would avail not to reply:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
But to the uncommunicating dead.
Death is the veil which those who live call life:
They sleep, and it is lifted.
Here, to my understanding, the word "tongue" does not express, though it suggests, the real meaning. The Earth is speaking in her natural living voice and language, and, I suppose, intends to say, "This theme is intelligible," or something equivalent. In the parallel passages already quoted from her dialogue with Prometheus,
How canst thou hear
Who knowest not the language of the dead?
and
No, thou canst not hear:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
Only to those who die,—
