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The form of gambling from which the phrase is taken, had clearly become common in Attica among the class to which the watchman was supposed to belong, and had given rise to proverbial phrases like that in the text. The Greeks themselves supposed it to have been invented by the Lydians, (Herod. i. 94,) or Palamedes, one of the heroes of the tale of Troïa, but it enters also into Egyptian legends (Herod. ii. 122,) and its prevalence from remote antiquity in the farther East, as in the Indian stroy of Nala and Damayanti, makes it probable that it originated there. The game was commonly played, as the phrase shows, with three dice, the highest throw being that which gave three sixes. Æschylos, it may be noted, appears in a lost drama, which bore the title of “Palamedes,” to have brought the game itself into his plot. It is referred to, as invented by that hero, in a fragment of Sophocles, (Fr. 380,) and again in the proverb,—

Here, also, the watchman takes up another common proverbial phrase, belonging to the same group as that of “kicking against the pricks” in v. 1624. He has his reasons for silence, weighty as would be the tread of an ox to close his lips.

The vultures stand, i.e., to the rulers of Heaven, in the same relation as the foreign sojourners in Athens, the Metoecs, did to the citizens under whose protection they placed themselves.

Alexandros, the other name of Paris, the seducer of Helen.

The words, perhaps, refer to the grief of Menelaos, as leading him to neglect the wonted sacrifices to Zeus, but it seems better to see in them a reference to the sin of Paris. He, at least, who had carried off his host's wife, had not offered acceptable sacrifices, had neglected all sacrifices to Zeus Xenios, the God of host and guest. The allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which some have found here, and the wrath of Clytæmnestra, which Agamemnon will fail to soothe, seems more far-fetched.

An allusion, such as the audience would catch and delight in, to the well-known enigma of the Sphinx. See Sophocles, (Trans.,) p. 1.

The Chorus, though too old to take part in the expedition, are yet able to tell both of what passed as the expedition started, and of the terrible fulfilment of the omens which they had seen. The two eagles are, of course, in the symbolism of prophecy, the two chieftains, Menalaos and Agamemnon. The “white feathers” of the one may point to the less heroic character of Menelaos: so, in v. 123, they are of “diverse mood.” The hare whom they devour is, in the first instance, Troïa, and so far the omen is good, portending the success of the expedition; but, as Artemis hates the fierceness of the eagles, so there is, in the eyes of the seer, a dark token of danger from her wrath against the Atreidæ. Either their victory will be sullied by cruelty which will bring down vengeance, or else there is some secret sin in the past which must be atoned for by a terrible sacrifice. In the legend followed by Sophocles, (Electr. 566,) Agamemnon had offended Artemis by slaying a doe sacred to her, as he was hunting. In the manifold meanings of such omens there is, probably, a latent suggestion of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia by the two chieftains, though this was at the time hidden from the seer. The fact that they are seen on the right, not on the left hand, was itself ominous of good.

The song of Linos, originally the dirge with which men mourned for the death of Linos, the minstrel-son of Apollo and Urania, brother of Orpheus, who was slain by Heracles,—a type, like Thammuz and Adonis, of life prematurely closed and bright hopes never to be fulfilled,—had come to be the representative of all songs of mourning. So Hesiod. (in Eustath. on Hom. Il., vii. 569) speaks of the name, as applied to all funeral dirges over poets and minstrels. So Herodotos (ii. 79) compares it, as the type of this kind of music among the Greeks, with what he found in Egypt connected with the name of Maneros, the only son of the first king of Egypt, who died in the bloom of youth. The name had, therefore, as definite a connotation for a Greek audience as the words Miserere or Jubilate would have for us, and ought not, I believe, to disappear from the translation.

The comparison of a lion's whelps to dew-drops, bold as the figure is, has something in it analogous to that with which we are more familiar, describing the children, or the army of a king, as the “dew” from “the womb of the morning.”—Ps. cx. 3.

The sacrifice, i.e., was to be such as could not, according to the customary ritual, form a feast for the worshippers.

The dark words look at once before and after, back to the murder of the sons of Thyestes, forward, though of this the seer knew not, to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia.

As a part of the drama the whole passage that follows is an assertion by the Chorus that in this their trouble they will turn to no other God, invoke no other name, but that of the Supreme Zeus. But it can hardly be doubted that they have a meaning beyond this, and are the utterance by the poet of his own theology. In the second part of the Promethean trilogy (all that we now know of it) he had represented Zeus as ruling in the might of despotic sovereignty, the representative of a Power which men could not resist, but also could not love, inflicting needless sufferings on the sons of men. Now he has grown wiser. The sovereignty of Zeus is accepted as part of the present order of the world; trust in Him brings peace; the pain which He permits is the one only way to wisdom. The stress laid upon the name of Zeus implies a wish to cleave to the religion inherited from the older Hellenes, as contrasted with those with which their intercourse with the East had made the Athenians familiar. Like the voice which came to Epimenides, as he was building a sanctuary to the Muses, bidding him dedicate it not to them but to Zeus, (Diog. Laert. i. 10,) it represents a faint approximation to a truer, more monotheistic creed than that of the popular mythology.

The two mighty ones who have passed away are Uranos and Cronos, the representatives in Greek mythology of the earlier stages of the world's history, (1) mere material creation, (2) an ideal period of harmony, a golden, Saturnian age, preceding the present order of divine government with its mingled good and evil. Comp. Hesiod. Theogon. 459.

The seer saw his augury fulfilled. When he uttered the name of Artemis it was pregnant with all the woe which he had foreboded at the outset.

So that the blood might fall upon the altar, as the knife was drawn across the throat.

The whole passage should be compared with the magnificent description in Lucretius i. 84–101.

Beautiful as a picture, and as motionless and silent also. The art, young as it was, had already reached the stage when it supplied to the poet an ideas standard of perfection. Other allusions to it are found in vv. 774, 1300.

The words point to the ritual of Greek feasts, which assigned the first libation to Zeus and the Olympian Gods, the second to the Heroes, the third to Zeus in his special character as Saviour and Preserver; the last was commonly accompanied by a pæan, hymn of praise. The life of Agamemnon is described as one which had good cause to offer many such libations. Iphigeneia had sung many such pæans.

The mythical explanation of this title for the Argive territory is found in the Suppl. v. 256, and its real meaning will be discussed in a note on that passage.

To speak of Morning as the child of Night was, we may well believe, among the earliest parables of nature. In its mythical form it appears in Hesiod., (Thegon. 123,) but its traces are found wherever, as among Hebrews, Athenians, Germans, men reckoned by nights rather than by days, and spoke of “the evening and the morning” rather than of “day and night.”

The God thought of is, as in v. 272, Hephæstos, as being Lord of the Fire, that had brought the tidings.

It is not without significance that Clytæmnestra scorns the channel of divine instruction of which the Chorus had spoken with such reverence. The dramatist puts into her mouth the language of those who scoffed at the notion that truth might come to the soul in “visions of the night,” when “deep sleep falleth upon men.” So Sophocles puts like thoughts into the mouth of Jocasta, (Œd. King, vv. 709, 858.)

Omens came from the flight of birds. An omen which was not trustworthy, or belonged to some lower form of divination, might therefore be spoken of as wingless. But the word may possibly be intensive, not negative, “swift-winged,” and then refer generically to that form of divination.

The description that follows, over and above its general interest, had, probably, for an Athenian audience, that of representing the actual succession of beacon-stations, by which they, in the course of the wars under Pericles, had actually received intelligence from the coasts of Asia. A glance at the map will show the fitness of the places named—Ida, Lemnos, Athos, Makistos, (a mountain in Eubœa,) Messapion, (on the coast of Bœotia,) over the plains of the Asôpos to Kithæron, in the south of the same province, then over Gorgopis, a bay of the Corinthian Gulf, to Ægiplanctos in Megaris, then across to a headland overlooking the Saronic Gulf, to the Arachnæan hill in Argolis. The word “courier-fire” connects itself also with the system of posts or messengers, which the Persian kings seem to have been the first to organise, and which impressed the minds both of Hebrews, (Esth. viii. 14,) and Greeks, (Herod. viii. 98,) by their regular transmission of the king's edicts, or of special news.

Our ignorance of the details of the Lampadephoria, or “torch-race games,” in honour of the fire-God, Prometheus, makes the allusion to them somewhat obscure. As described by Pausanias, (I. xxx. 2,) the runners started with lighted torches from the altar of Prometheus in the Academeia and ran towards the city. The first who reached the goal with his torch still burning became the winner. If all the torches were extinguished, then all were losers. As so described, however, there is no succession, no taking the torch from one and passing it on to another, like that described here and in the well-known line of Lucretius, (ii. 78.)

On the other hand, there are descriptions which show that such a transfer was the chief element of the game. This is, indeed, implied both in this passage and in the comparison between the game and the Persian courier-system in Herod. viii. 98. The two views may be reconciled by supposing (1) that there were sets of runners, vying with each other as such, rather than individually, or (2) that a runner whose speed failed him though his torch kept burning, was allowed to hand it on to another who was more likely to win the race, but whose torch was out. The next line seems meant to indicate where the comparison failed. In the torch-race which Clytæmnestra describes there had been no contest. One and the self-same fire (the idea of succession passing into that of continuity) had started and had reached the goal, and so had won the prize.

The complete foot-race was always to the column which marked the end of the course, round it, and back again. In getting to Troïa, therefore, but half the race was done.

Dramatically the words refer to the practical impiety of evildoers like Paris, with, perhaps, a half-latent allusion to that of Clytæmnestra. But it can hardly be doubted that for the Athenian audience it would have a more special significance, as a protest against the growing scepticism, what in a later age would have been called the Epicureanism, of the age of Pericles, It is the assertion of the belief of Æschylos in the moral government of the world. The very vagueness of the singular, “One there was,” would lead the hearers to think of some teacher like Anaxagoras, whom they suspected of Atheism.

The Chorus sees in the overthrow of Troïa, an instance of this righteous retribution. The audience were, perhaps, intended to think also of the punishment which had fallen on the Persians for the sacrilegious acts of their fathers. The “things inviolable” are the sanctities of the ties of marriage and hospitality, both of which Paris had set at nought.

Here, and again in v. 612, we have a similitude drawn from the metallurgy of Greek artists. Good bronze, made of copper and tin, takes the green rust which collectors prize, but when rubbed, the brightness reappears. If zinc be substituted for tin, as in our brass, or mixed largely with it, the surface loses its polish, oxidises and becomes black. It is, however, doubtful whether this combination of metals was at the time in use, and the words may simply refer to different degrees of excellence in bronze properly so called.

In a corrupt passage like this, the text of which has been so variously restored and rendered, it may be well to give at least one alternative version:

The words, as so taken, refer to the vision of Helen, described in the lines that follow. Another, for the line “Beholding,” &c., .... would give,

The art of Pheidias had already made it natural at Athens to speak of kings as decorating their palaces with the life-size busts or statues of those they loved.

Here again one may note a protest against the aggressive policy of Pericles, an assertion of the principle that a nation should be content with independence, without aiming at supremacy.

Perhaps passively, “Soon suffers trespassers.”

As the play opens on the morning of the day on which Troïa was taken, and now we have the arrivals, first, of the herald, and then of Agamemnon, after the capture has been completed, and the spoil divided, and the fleet escaped a storm, an interval of some days must be supposed between the two parts of the play, the imaginary law of the unities notwithstanding.

The customary adornment of heralds who brought good news. Comp. Sophocles, Œd. K. v. 83. The custom prevailed for many centuries, and is recognised by Dante, Purg. ii. 70, as usual in his time in Italy.

So in the Seven against Thebes, (v. 494) smoke is called “the sister of fire.”

A probable reference, not only to the story, but to the actual words of Homer, Il. i., 45–52.

Specially the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeukes.

Such a position (especially in the case of Zeus or Apollo) was common in the temples both of Greece and Rome, and had a very obvious signification. As the play was performed, the actual hour of the day probably coincided with that required by the dramatic sequence of events, and the statues of the Gods were so placed on the stage as to catch the rays of the morning sun when the herald entered. Hence the allusion to the bright “cheerful glances” would have a visible as well as ethical fitness.

It formed part of the guilt of Paris, that, besides his seduction of Helena, he had carried off part of the treasures of Menelaos.

The idea of a payment twofold the amount of the wrong done, as a complete satisfaction to the sufferer, was common in the early jurisprudence both of Greeks and Hebrews, (Exod. xxii. 4–7.) In some cases it was even more, as in the four or fivefold restitution of Exod. xxii. l. In the grand opening of Isaiah's message of glad tidings the fact that Jerusalem has received “double for all her sins” is made the ground on the strength of which she may now hope for pardon. Comp. also Isa. lxi. 7; Zech. ix. 12.

Perhaps, “Full hardly, and the close and crowded decks.”

So stress is laid upon this form of hardship, as rising from the climate of Troïa, by Sophocles. Aias, 1206.

One may conjecture that here also, as with the passage describing the succession of beacon fires, (vv. 281–314,) the description would have for an Athenian audience the interest of recalling personal reminiscences of some recent campaign in Thrakè, or on the coasts of Asia.

We may, perhaps, think of the herald, as he speaks, placing some representative trophy upon the pegs on the pedestals of the statues of the great Gods of Hellas, whom he had invoked on his entrance.

Or,

The husband, on his departure, sealed up his special treasures. It was the glory of the faithful wife or the trusty steward to keep these seals unbroken.

There is an ambiguity, possibly an intentional one, in the comparison which Clytæmnestra uses. If there was no such art as that of “staining bronze” (or copper) known at the time, the words would be a natural phrase enough to describe what was represented as an impossibility. Later on in the history of art, however, as in the time of Plutarch, a process so described (perhaps analogous to enamelling) is described (De Pyth. Orac. § 2) as common. If we suppose the art to have been a mystery known to the few, but not to the many, in the time of Æschylos, then the words would have for the hearers the point of a double entendre. She seems to the mass to disclaim what yet, to those in the secret, she acknowledges.

Another rendering refers “bronze” to the “sword,” and makes the stains those of blood; as though she said, “I am as guiltless of adultery as of murder,” while yet she knew that she had committed the one, and meant to commit the other. The possibility of such a meaning is certainly in the words and with a sharp-witted audience catching at ænigmas and dark sayings may have added to their suggestiveness.

The last two lines are by some editors assigned to the Herald.

It need hardly be said that it is as difficult to render a paranomasia of this kind as it is to reproduce those, more or less analogous, which we find in the prophets of the Old Testament, (Comp. especially Micah i.;) but it seems better to substitute something which approaches, however imperfectly, to an equivalent than to obscure the reference to the nomen et omen by abandoning the attempt to translate it. “Hell of men, and hell of ships, and hell of towers,” has been the rendering adopted by many previous translators. The Greek fondness for this play on names is seen in Sophocles. Aias, v. 401.

Zephyros, Boreas, and the other great winds were represented in the Theogony of Hesiod (v. 134) as the offspring of Astræos and Eôs, and Astræos was a Titan. The west wind was, of course, favourable to Paris as he went with Helen from Greece to Troïa.

Here again the translator has to meet the difficulty of a pun. As an alternative we might take—

The sons of Priam are thought of as taking part in the celebration of Helen's marriage with Paris, and as, therefore, involving themselves in the guilt and the penalty of his crime.

Here, too, it may be well to give an alternative rendering—

Home-reared lions seem to have been common as pets, both among Greeks and Latins, (Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 31; Plutarch de Cohib. irâ, § 14, p. 822,) sometimes, as in Martial's Epigram, ii. 25, with fatal consequences. The text shows the practice to have been common enough in the time of Pericles to supply a similitude.

There may, possibly, be a half allusion here to the passage in the Iliad, (vv. 154–160,) which describes the fascination which the beauty of Helen exercised on the Troïan elders.

The poet becomes a prophet, and asserts what it has been given him to know of the righteous government of God. The dominant creed of Greece at the time was, that the Gods were envious of man's prosperity, that this alone, apart from moral evil, was enough to draw down their wrath, and bring a curse upon the prosperous house. So, e.g., Amasis tells Polycrates (Herod. iii. 40) that the unseen Divinity that rules the world is envious, that power and glory are inevitably the precursors of destruction. Comp. also the speech of Artabanos, (Herod. vii. 10, 46.) Against this, in the tone of one who speaks single-handed for the truth, Æschylos, through the Chorus, enters his protest.

Sc. Agamemnon, by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, had induced his troops to persevere in an expedition from which, in their inmost hearts, they shrank back with strong dislike.

Possibly an allusion to Pandora's box. Here, too, Hope alone was left, but it only came up to where the curve of the rim began, not to its top. The imagery is drawn from the older method of voting, in which (as in Eumenides, v. 678) the votes for condemnation and acquittal were cast into separate urns.

The lion, as the symbol of the house of Atreus, still seen in the sculptures of Mykenæ; the horse, in allusion to the stratagem by which Troïa had been taken.

At the end of autumn, and therefore at a season when a storm like that described by the herald would be a probable incident enough.

So in Sophocles, Philoctetes (v. 1025) taunts Odysseus:—

Geryon appears in the myth of Hercules as a monster with three heads and three bodies, ruling over the island Erytheia, in the far West, beyond Hesperia. To destroy him and seize his cattle was one of the “twelve labours,” with which Hesiod (Theogon. vv. 287–294) had already made men familiar.

When a man is buried, there is earth above and earth below him. Clytæmnestra having used the word “coverlet,” pauses to make her language accurate to the very letter. She is speaking only of the earth which would have been laid over her husband's corpse, had he died as often as he was reported to have done. She will not utter anything so ominous as an allusion to the depths below him stretching down to Hades.

Or—

The words touch upon the psychological fact that in dreams, as in other abnormal states of the mind, the usual measures of time disappear, and we seem to pass through the experiences of many years in the slumber of a few minutes.

The rhetoric of the passage, with all its multiplied similitudes, fine as it is in itself, receives its dramatic significance by being put into the lips of Clytæmnestra. She “doth protest too much.” A true wife would have been content with fewer words.

The last three lines of the speech are of course intentionally ambiguous, carrying one meaning to the ear of Agamemnon, and another to that of the audience.

There is obviously a side-thrust, such as an Athenian audience would catch at, at the token of homage which the Persian kings required of their subjects, the prostration at their feet, the earth spread over with costly robes. Of the latter custom we have examples in the history of Jehu, (2 Kings ix. 13,) in our Lord's entry into Jerusalem, (Mark xi. 8,) in the usages of modern Persian kings, (Malcolm's Persia, i. 580;) perhaps also in the true rendering of Ps. xlv. 14, “She shall be brought unto the king on raiment of needle-work.” In the march of Xerxes across the Hellespont myrtle-boughs strown on the bridge of boats took the place of robes, (Herod. vii. 54.) To the Greek character, with its strong love of independence, such customs were hateful. The case of Pausanias, who offended the national feeling by assuming the outward state of the Persian kings, must have been recalled to the minds of the Athenians, intentionally or otherwise, by such a passage as this.

The “old saying, famed of many men,” which we find in the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, (v. 1,) and in the counsel of Solon to Crœsos, (Herod. i. 32.)

He who had suffered so much from the wrath of Artemis at Aulis knew what it was to rouse the wrath and jealousy of the Gods.

An echo of a line in Hesiod, (Works and Days, 763)—

Here, too, we may trace a reference to the Oriental custom of recognising the sanctity of a consecrated place by taking the shoes from off the feet, as in Exod. iii. 5, in the services of the Tabernacle and Temple, through all their history, (Juven. Sat. vi. 159,) in all mosques to the present day. Agamemnon, yielding to the temptress, seeks to make a compromise with his conscience. He will walk upon the tapestry, but will treat it as if it, of right, belonged to the Gods, and were a consecrated thing. It is probably in connexion with this incident that Æschylos was said to have been the first to bring actors on the stage in these boots or buskins, (Suidas. s. v. αρβυλη.)

The words of Isaiah, (xviii. 5,) “when the sour grape is ripening in the flower,” present an almost verbal parallel.

The ever-recurring ambiguity of Clytæmnestra's language is again traceable, as is also her fondness for rhetorical similitudes.

The Chorus speaks in perplexity. It cannot get rid of its forebodings, and yet it would seem as if the time for the fulfilment of the dark words of Calchas must have passed long since. It actually sees the safe return of the leader of the host, yet still its fears haunt it.

Asclepios, whom Zeus smote with his thunderbolt for having restored Hippolytos to life.

The Chorus, in spite of their suspicions and forebodings, have given the king no warning. They excuse themselves by the plea of necessity, the sovereign decree of Zeus overruling all man's attempts to withstand it.

Cassandra is summoned to an act of worship. The household is gathered, the altar to Zeus Ktesios, (the God of the family property,) standing in the servants' hall, is ready. The new slave must come in and take her place with the others.

As in the story which forms the groundwork of the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, vv. 250-280, that Heracles had been sold to Omphale as a slave, in penalty for the murder of Iphitos.

Political as well as dramatic. The Eupatrid poet appeals to public opinion against the nouveaux riches, the tanners and lamp-makers, who were already beginning to push themselves forward towards prominence and power. The way was thus prepared in the first play of the Trilogy for what is known to have been the main object of the last.

Here again the translator has the task of finding an English paronomasia which approximates to that of the Greek, between Apollo and απολλων, the destroyer. To Apollo, as the God of paths, (Aguieus,) an altar stood, column-fashion, before the street-door of every house, and to such an altar, placed by the door of Agamemnon's palace, Cassandra turns, with the twofold play upon the name.

This refers, probably, to the death of Hippodameia, the wife of Pelops, who killed herself, in remorse for the death of Chrysippos, or fear of her husband's anger. The horrors of the royal house of Argos pass, one by one, before the vision of the prophetess, and this leads the procession, followed by the spectres of the murdered children of Thyestes.

The Chorus understands the vision of the clairvoyante as regards the past tragedy of the house of Atreus, but not that which seems to portend another actually imminent.

Fresh visions come before the eyes of the seeress. She beholds the company of Erinnyes hovering over the accursed house, and calls on them to continue their work till the new crime has met with its due punishment.

The “yellow” look of fear is thought of as being caused by an actual change in the colour of the blood as it flows through the veins to the heart.

Here there is prevision as well as clairvoyance. The deed is not yet done. The sacrifice and the feast are still going on, yet she sees the crime in all its circumstances.

As before (v. 115) the black eagle had been the symbol of the warriorchief, so here the black-horned bull, that being one of the notes of the best breed of cattle. A various reading gives “with her swarthy horn.”

The ecstasy of horror interrupts the tenor of her speech, and the second “thou” is addressed not to the chorus, but to Agamemnon, whose death Cassandra has just witnessed in her vision.

The song of the nightingale, represented by these sounds, was connected with a long legend, specially Attic in its origin. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king of Attica, suffered outrage at the hands of Tereus, who was married to her sister Procne, and was then changed into a nightingale, destined ever to lament the fate of Itys, her sister's son. The earliest form of the story appears in the Odyssey, (xix. 518.) Comp. Sophocles, Electr. v. 148.

In the marriage-rites of the Greeks of the time of Æschylos, the bride for three days after the wedding wore her veil; then, as now no longer shrinking from her matron life, she laid it aside and looked on her husband with unveiled face.

The picture might be drawn by any artist of power, but we may, perhaps, trace a reproduction of one of the grandest passages in the Iliad, (iv. 422—426.)

So in the Eumenides, (v. 293,) the Erinnyes appear as vampires, drinking the blood of their victims.

The death of Myrtilos as the first crime in the long history of the house of Pelops. Comp. Soph. Electr. v. 470. The “defiler” is Thyestes, who seduced Aerope, the wife of Atreus.

The horror of the Thyestes banquet again haunts her as the source of all the evils that followed, of the deaths both of Iphigeneia and Agamemnon.

Both words point to the Sindbad-like stories of distant marvels brought back by Greek sailors. The Amphisbæna, (double-goer,) wriggling itself backward and forward, believed to have a head at each extremity, was looked upon as at once the most subtle and the most venomous of serpents. Skylla, already famous in its mythical form from the story in the Odyssey. (xii. 85–100,) was probably a “development” of the monstrous cuttle-fish of the straits of Messina.

As in Homer (Il. i. 14) so here, the servant of Apollo bears the wand of augury, and fillets or wreaths round head and arms. The divining garments, in like manner, were of white linen.

If we adopt this reading, we must think of Cassandra as identifying herself with the woe (Atè) which makes up her life, just as afterwards Clytæmnestra speaks of herself as one with the avenging Demon (Alastor) of the house of Atreus, (1478.) The alternative reading gives,—

Perhaps “in home not mine.”

When the victim, instead of shrinking and struggling, went, as with good courage, to the altar, it was noted as a sign of a divine impulse. Such a strange, new courage the Chorus notes in Cassandra.

Her own doom, hard as it was, touches her less than the common lot of human suffering and mutability.

So far the dialogue has been sustained by the Coryphæos, or leader of the Chorus. Now each member of it speaks and gives his counsel.

The Coryphæos again takes up his part, sums up, and pronounces his decision.

i.e. He had had his triumph over her when, forgetful of her mother's feelings, he had sacrificed Iphigeneia. She has now repaid him to the full.

The third libation at all feasts was to Zeus, as the Preserver or Guardian Deity. Clytæmnestra boasts that her third blow was as an offering to a God of other kind, to Him who had in his keeping not the living, but the dead.

So in the Choëphori, (vv. 351, 476,) the custom of pouring libations on the burial-place of the dead is recognised as an element of their blessedness or shame in Hades, and Agamemnon is represented as lacking the honour which comes from them till he receives it at the hand of Orestes.

Incense was placed on the head of the victim. The Chorus tells Clytæmnestra that she has brought upon her own head the incense, not of praise and admiration, but of hatred and wrath, as though some poison had driven her mad.

The species of swan referred to is said to be the Cygnus Musicus. Aristotle (Hist. Anim., ix. 12) describes swans of some kind as having been heard by sailors near the coast of Libya, “singing with a lamentable cry.” Mrs Somerville (Phys. Geog., c. xxxiii. 3) describes their note as “like that of a violin.” The same fact is reported of the swans of Iceland and other regions of the far North. The strange, tender beauty of the passage in the Phœdo of Plato, (p. 85, a,) which speaks of them as singing when at the point of death, has done more than anything else to make the illustration one of the commonplaces of rhetoric and poetry.

The structure of the lyrical dialogue that follows is somewhat complicated, and different editors have adopted different arrangements. I have followed Paley's.

Several lines seem to have dropped out by some accident of transcripttion.

Agamemnon and Menelaos, as descended from Tantalos.

Clytæmnestra still harps (though in ambiguous words, which may refer also to the murder of the children of Thyestes) upon the death of Iphigeneia as the crime which it had been her work to avenge.

Perhaps, “And that too, not a slaves.”

Here the genealogy is carried one step further to Pleisthenes, the father of Tantalos

The image is taken from the trireme with its three benches full of rowers. The Chorus is compared to the men on the lowest, Ægisthos and Clytæmnestra to those on the uppermost bench.

The earliest occurrence of the proverb with which we are familiar through the history of St Paul's conversion, Acts ix. 5, xxvi. 14.

The trace-horse, as not under the pressure of the collar, was taken as the type of free, those that wore the yoke, of enforced submission.