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I may be being dense, but exactly how could the elves have actually heard the verse? Sauron forged the ring at Orodruin, and I don't seem to recall anything about anyone else being there at the time with him. He may have been using the techniques he had shared with Celembrimbor, but the One ring was, as I recall forged in solitude. The elves could not have read the verse off the ring, as it's only visible when the ring is placed back in fire. There are only two possiblityies I can think of. Once is that the verse is actually a sort of charm or spell; when Sauron says it while wearing the ring it's what links the other rings in and that, intitally the spell had to be said in the presence of the other rings to bring them fully under the Master ring's control (i.e. Saron made the ring in Orodruin but then had to take it back to Eregion and say the spell to "link" the other rings in. The other possiblity is that it was read of the ring when Isildur had it, though this is less likely as it is doubful that he would had condescended to ever allow the ring to leave his presence and there would be no reason why he would trow it into a fire (though there is the possiblity that Sauron, in his "Great Warrior" body in fact emitted siginficant heat (which could explain the burned skin visible under the black armor) in which case the ring may have always been hot enough for the words to be visible.)
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