very short extract only can be afforded to their controversy. After asking sundry pertinent questions about the young bridegroom and the marriage ceremony—in which the speakers are at cross-purposes, Clytemnestra meaning the wedding, while Agamemnon's replies covertly allude to the sacrifice—he astonishes her by a most unexpected demand upon her obedience! "Obey you!" she exclaims; "you have long trained me to do so, but in what am I now to show my obedience?"
"Agam.To Argos go, thy charge the virgins there.
Clyt.And leave my daughter? Who shall raise the torch?
Agam.The light to deck the nuptials I will hold.
Clyt.Custom forbids; nor wouldst thou deem it seemly.
Agam.Nor decent that thou mix with banded troops.
Clyt.But decent that the mother give the daughter.
Agam.Let me persuade thee.
Clyt.By the potent Queen,
Goddess of Argos, no. Of things abroad
Take thou the charge: within the house my care
Shall deck the virgin's nuptials, as is meet."
Agamemnon, now at his wits' end, says he will go and consult Calchas, and hear from him whether anything can be done to set him right with Diana.
Matters are hurrying to a crisis. Achilles enters, after the choral song has ceased, thinking to find Agamemnon, and then to inform him that the Myrmidons are on the very edge of mutiny, and that he cannot hold them in much longer. He says:—
