mother Clytemnestra will soon arrive. The time is night, the "brave o'erhanging firmament" is studded with stars. The only sounds audible are the tramp of sentinels, and the challenge of the watch: the camp is wrapt in deep slumber:—
"Not the sound
Of birds is heard, nor of the sea; the winds
Are hushed in silence."
"The king of men" is much agitated by some secret grief. By the light of a "blazing lamp" he is writing a letter:—
"The writing he does blot; then seal,
And open it again; then on the floor
Casts it in grief: the warm tear from his eyes
Fast flowing, in his thoughts distracted near,
Even, it may seem, to madness."
The cause for the perturbation of his spirit is this: the Grecian fleet has been detained at Aulis by thwarting winds, and Calchas, the seer, has declared that Agamemnon's daughter must be sacrificed to Diana, irate with him because he has shot, while hunting, one of her sacred deer. Unwittingly the Grecian commander has, in order to conciliate her, vowed that he will offer to her the most beautiful creature that the year of his child's birth has produced. He has been persuaded by his brother Menelaus to summon Iphigenia to Aulis, on the pretext of giving her in marriage to Achilles. He has sent a letter to Argos, directing Clytemnestra to bring the maiden to the camp without delay. Soon, however, the father recoils from this deceit,
