CHORUS.-With vehemence, with vehemence, exceedingly dolorously.

XERXES.-And utter the shrill

CHORUS. This too will I do.

--

cry.

XERXES.-Rend too with strength of hand thy robe that hangs in folds.

CHORUS.-Woe! woe! woe!

XERXES.-Pluck thy locks too, and commiserate the

army.

CHORUS. With vehemence, with vehemence, exceedingly dolorously.

XERXES.-And drench thine eyes.

CHORUS.-I am in very deed steeped in tears.

XERXES. Shriek now in response to me.

CHORUS.-Oh! oh! oh! oh!

XERXES. Move on to the house with exclamations of

sorrow.

.

XERXES.-Alas! indeed through the city.
CHORUS.-Alas! in sooth, yea, yea.

XERXES.-Pour your sighs as ye gently advance.

CHORUS. (Alas! for the Persian land that dismally reechoes,) ah! ah!

XERXES. Alas! for those who perished in the threetiered barks.

CHORUS.-I will escort thee with dismally-sounding sighs.

k Wellauer retains the old reading, which Pauw thus explains: “Terra Persica dúoßaros nunc est mihi, eamque tristis nunc calco pede tristi."

AGAMEMNON.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

A WATCHMAN.

CHORUS OF OLD MEN OF ARGOS. CLYTEMNESTRA.

THE HERALD TALTHYBIUS.

AGAMEMNON.

CASSANDRA.

ÆGISTHUS.

ARGUMENT.

"In Agamemnon it was the intention of Eschylus to exhibit to us a sudden fall from the highest pitch of prosperity and fame into the abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, the general of the whole of the Greeks, in the very moment when he has succeeded in concluding the most glorious action, the destruction of Troy, the fame of which is to be reechoed from the mouths of the greatest poets of all ages, on entering the threshold of his house, after which he has long sighed, is strangled amidst the unsuspected preparations for a festival, according to the expression of Homer, "like an ox in the stall," strangled by his faithless wife; her unworthy seducer takes possession of his throne, and the children are consigned to banishment, or to hopeless servitude.

With the view of giving greater effect to this dreadful alteration of fortune, the poet has previously thrown a splendour over the destruction of Troy. He has done this, in the first half of the piece, in a manner peculiar to himself, which, however singular, must be allowed to be impressive in the extreme, and to lay fast hold of the imagination. It is of importance to Clytæmnestra not to be surprised by the arrival of her husband; she has therefore arranged an uninterrupted series of signal fires from Troy to Mycenæ, to announce to her that great event. The piece commences with the speech of a watchman, who supplicates the gods for a release from his toils; as for ten long years he has been exposed to the cold dews of night, has witnessed the various changes of the stars, and looked in vain for the expected signal; at the same time he laments in secret the internal ruin of the royal house. At this moment he sees the blaze of the long-wished-for fires, and hastens to announce it to his mistress. A chorus of aged persons appears, and in their songs they trace back the Trojan war, throughout all its eventful changes of fortune, from its first origin; and recount all the pro