"Coming to many ways in the wanderings of careful thought."

If the words odous and planois had not been used, the line might have
been explained in a metaphorical instead of an absolute sense, as we say
"WAYS and means," and "wanderings" for error and confusion. But they
meant literally paths or roads, such as we tread with our feet; and
wanderings, such as a man makes when he loses himself in a desert, or
roams from city to city--as Oedipus, the speaker of this verse, was
destined to wander, blind and asking charity. What a picture does this
line suggest of the mind as a wilderness of intricate paths, wide as the
universe, which is here made its symbol; a world within a world which he
who seeks some knowledge with respect to what he ought to do searches
throughout, as he would search the external universe for some valued
thing which was hidden from him upon its surface.'

In reading Shelley's poetry, we often find similar verses, resembling,
but not imitating the Greek in this species of imagery; for, though he
adopted the style, he gifted it with that originality of form and
colouring which sprung from his own genius.

In the "Prometheus Unbound", Shelley fulfils the promise quoted from a
letter in the Note on the "Revolt of Islam". (While correcting the
proof-sheets of that poem, it struck me that the poet had indulged in an
exaggerated view of the evils of restored despotism; which, however
injurious and degrading, were less openly sanguinary than the triumph of
anarchy, such as it appeared in France at the close of the last century.
But at this time a book, "Scenes of Spanish Life", translated by
Lieutenant Crawford from the German of Dr. Huber, of Rostock, fell into
my hands. The account of the triumph of the priests and the serviles,
after the French invasion of Spain in 1823, bears a strong and frightful