away, to send, as soon as Troy should fall, a message of beacon-fires to tell the good news to his wife in Argos. The watchman has hardly spoken before we feel, from his weariness, how long the war has lasted, and how long Clytemnestra's faithfulness has been tried. Night after night he has watched the stars, and passed the damp cold hours in sleepless weariness, striving at times to beguile his loneliness with song; but at all such times gaiety has been driven away—by what?
"Still, as I strive to guile the unquiet night—
Sad remedy!—with song or carol gay,
I. can but weep and mourn this fatal house,
Not as of old with righteous wisdom ruled."[1]
While he is speaking, far away out on the right of the stage a bright flame shoots up: it is the beacon's blaze. "All hail," the watchman cries,—
"All hail, thou glory of the night! that blazest
With noon-day splendour, wakening Argos up
To dance and song for this thrice-blest event!"
He will go to tell the queen of the good news,—good news, and yet,—
"But peace! no more! the seal is on my lips!
The palace' self, could it but find a voice,
"Would speak from its dark walls! To the understanding
I speak; to those who understand not—nothing."
Already we begin to fear that some storm is coming.
- ↑ The translations throughout the "Agamemnon" are by Dean Milman.
