particularly on the circumstances of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Then follows the appearance of the Herald, and of Agamemnon; the treacherous welcome of Clytemnestra; the prophecy of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, now a captive in Agamemnon's train; the murder of the king, and Clytemnestra's savage exultation over his body and that of Cassandra. With the appearance of Ægisthus, and his avowal of his plot and motives, the drama closes, leaving Clytemnestra and her paramour in supreme power over Argos.
The second part, called the Choephoroi, or Libation-Bearers—from the duty imposed upon the chorus of pouring libations on Agamemnon's tomb—opens with the secret return of Orestes, the mutual recognition of himself and his sister Electra, and their invocation of the sleepless spirit of their father to aid their planned revenge. Then Orestes, assuming the character of a Phocian stranger, recounts to Clytemnestra a feigned tale of his own death in that land. Then, received into the palace, he slays Ægisthus and Clytemnestra, and avows his commission from Apollo to do the deed. But already his "are but wild and whirling words;" and, maddened by the guilt of blood, he sees the Furies arise, with dark robes and snaky hair; and, calling on Apollo for protection, he flees wildly away.[1]
- ↑ Two scenes of the Trilogy have been thus admirably sketched by Mr. Browning in "Pauline."
"Old lore,
Loved for itself and all it shows; the king
Treading the purple calmly to his death,
While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk,
The giant shades of fate, silently flitting,
Pile the dim outline of the coming doom.
And the boy
With his white breast and brow, and clustering curls,
Streaked with his mother's blood, and striving hard
To tell his story ere his reason goes."
