and fro? Look! how the curtain sways and waves and trembles before the breath of that which is behind!"[1]
Of the mythical tale, well known as it is, which forms the groundwork of this Trilogy, some slight sketch may be useful.
Atreus and Thyestes, sons of Pelops, fled from their father and dwelt at Argos with Eurystheus the king thereof: and when he died, Atreus[2] ruled in his place, and wedded his daughter. But Thyestes wronged his brother's wife, and was banished from Argos. And after a while he returned again, and clung unto the altar at Argos; and Atreus, fearing to slay him, devised this deed. He slew certain of the children of Thyestes, and bade him to a banquet, and gave him to eat of his own children's flesh: and he ate, knowing not what it was. But when he knew what was done, he spake a bitter curse upon the house of Atreus, that they all should perish by a doom like that of his own children. And there befel these woes unto that house, that for three generations the curse of murder departed not away. For the children of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, wedded the daughters of Leda, Clytemnestra and Helen: and afterwards Paris the son of Priam, being the guest of Menelaus, did bear away Helen his queen unto Troy. And Agamemnon and Menelaus went forth to vengeance against Paris and Troy. But Artemis was wroth with the brothers, and forbade their ships to sail; and they lay at Aulis many days. And Calchas the prophet proclaimed that they should not go forth, unless Agamemnon
- ↑ V. Hugo, Napoleon le Petit, ch. last.
- ↑ The position of Pleisthenes in the family of Atreus seems doubtful, though the lineage is twice called by his name. (Ag. ll. 1569, 1602). Atreus is distinctly called father of Agamemnon (l. 1561), yet tradition rather holds that Pleisthenes was son of Atreus and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, but, dying young, left his children to the care of their grandfather Atreus.
