of triumph and despair are still ringing in our ears. But gradually, as we gaze, the several parts sink back into due proportion, and gradually there comes out into distinctness the supremely great figure of Clytemnestra. It grows up before us more and more vividly as we recall one grand speech after another,—as we remember how she exulted at the thought of her husband's return; how great she was in the defiant extravagance with which she spread his path; how fearfully wicked in her unflinching hypocrisy; how she despised Ægisthus, for whom she had done it all. And then, by her side, we begin to see clearly the noble stature of Agamemnon, and pity, which was suppressed awhile in awe at Clytemnestra, possesses us again.
Is all that villany to triumph, and all that nobleness to perish unavenged? But as we go over in memory the closing scenes, the thought arises of Orestes. What is he doing now? Growing up to manhood in a distant land, and meditating vengeance. He goes to sacred Delphi and consults Apollo, and is bidden to hasten to Argos and kill his mother and her guilty lover. And how are affairs in Argos? The palace is full of Trojan captives; Electra herself, Agamemnon's daughter, is little better than a slave; while hatred has been gradually grooving against Ægisthus and the queen, till there are many who long, hardly in secret, to see the face of the avenger.
But the herald's voice proclaims that the next play is to begin, and the curtain falls for the "Choephori, or Libation-bearers." Still the scene is the royal palace
