ARGUMENT.
It came to pass that when Agamemnon led the host of the Achæans against
Troia, his wife, Clytemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus, fell away
from her faithfulness, partly because she was wroth, or feigned to be
so, with her husband, for having sacrificed their daughter Iphigeneia
to turn aside the wrath of Artemis, and obtain a favouring breeze for
the ships of the Achæans; and partly because Ægisthos, son of Thyestes,
the brother of Atreus, father of Agamemnon, had gained her to
his will. And when Agamemnon returned from Troia to Mykenæ,
Ægisthos and Clytemnestra slew him, and reigned over the Argives
in his place, but Electra, his daughter, saved her brother Orestes, and
sent him secretly in charge of a faithful servant to Strophios of Phokis,
his father's friend. And when eight years had passed, and Electra
had sent and received from him many secret messages, Orestes at last
came, with his faithful friend Pylades, the son of Strophios, and the
servant who had watched over him, to Mykenæ, that he might do as
the God at Delphi had bidden him, and take vengeance on his father's
murderers. And it chanced that when he came, his mother, Clytemnestra,
had had a vision, which filled her with fear, and she sent her
younger daughter, Chrysothemis, with funereal offerings to the tomb
of Agamemnon. Electra meanwhile had never ceased to bewail her
father's death, and because of this, her mother and Ægisthos had dealt
harshly with her.
