that after rising early in the morning, and telling her dream to the Sun-god, she had sent Chrysothemis to carry libations to the tomb of Agamemnon, in the hope of appeasing the manes of the murdered king.
Electra can hardly restrain the fiery wrath which consumes her, as she hears of what she considers a fresh act of impious effrontery on the part of Clytemnestra. Her sister must never insult the dead by presenting these offerings from the guilty wife:—
"Cast them forth
To the wild winds, or hide them in the earth
Deep, deep; that never to my father's tomb
The accursed thing may reach; but when she dies,
Lie hid in earth to grace her sepulchre.
For had she not been formed of all her sex
The most abandoned, never had she crowned
These loathed libations to the man she slew.
Think'st thou the dead entombed could e'er receive
In friendly mood such obsequies from her
By whom he fell dishonoured, like a foe,
While on her mangled victim's head she wiped
His blood for expiation?"—(D.)
Let her rather offer at her father's tomb locks of hair cut from his daughters' heads, accompanied by a prayer that the son may speedily return to avenge his death. Chrysothemis assents, but begs her sister to keep her counsel.
Then follows a noble choral ode—almost rising to the grandeur of Æschylus. The dream which had terrified the queen animates the dying hopes of the
