triumphant and unashamed; from the divine side she is a messenger of Atè and Erinnys, filled full with their terrible displeasure, the most awful object that could meet the eyes of bewildered and despairing mortals. Through a long series of short answering chants her consciousness of this dread mission is contrasted with the timid horror of the Chorus. After attributing the whole line of sorrows to Helen, and wailing over Cassandra's death, the Chorus calls upon the Alastor, the unforgetting fury,—
"That Dæmon dread,
Whose wrath hangs heavy o'er the head
Of each of that predestined line;
A name, the omen and the sign
Of endless and insatiate misery."
And Clytemnestra takes up the strain:—
"Say not 'twas Agamemnon's wife
That so cut short his fated life,
It was the Alastor, whose dread mien
Took up the likeness of the queen.
Of that dark house 'twas he, 'twas he,
The curse and awful Destiny;
(Where, father of that race unblest,
Old Atreus held his cannibal feast;)
Wreaking for that dread crime the vengeance due,
The full-grown man for those poor babes he slew."
But the Chorus will not admit her defence, and mourn in indignation for the kingly head laid low by such foul treachery. Still the queen asserts the justice of her deed:—
