laboring bark,
Stately as column, fond as only child,
Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner,
Bright as fair sunshine after winter's storms,
Sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer--
All this, and more, thou art, dear love, to me."

Agamemnon passes within the palace; she slays him in his bath, enmeshed
in a net, and then, reappearing, vaunts her bloody deed:

"I smote him, and he bellowed; and again
I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way;
And as he fell before me, with a third
And last libation from the deadly mace,
I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due,
That subterranean Saviour--of the dead!
At which he spouted up the Ghost in such
A flood of purple as, bespattered with,
No less did I rejoice than the green ear
Rejoices in the largesse of the skies
That fleeting Iris follows as it flies."

Aeschylus departs from the Homeric account, which was followed by other
poets, in making the action of the next play, the 'Choephori,' follow
closer upon that of the 'Agamemnon.' Orestes has heard in Phocis of his
father's murder, and returns in secret, with his friend Pylades, to
exact vengeance. The scene is still Argos, but Agamemnon's tomb is now
seen in front of the palace. The Chorus consists of captive women, who
aid and abet the attempt. The play sets forth the recognition of Orestes
by Electra; the plot by which Orestes gains admission to the palace; the
deceit of the old Nurse, a homely but capital character, by whom
Aegisthus is induced to come to the palace without armed attendants; the
death of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; the appearance of the avenging
Furies; and the flight of Orestes.

The last play of the trilogy, the 'Eumenides,' has many singular
features. The Chorus of Furies seemed even to the ancients to be a weird
and terrible invention; the scene of the play shifts from Delphi to
Athens; the poet introduces into the play a trial scene; and he had in
it a distinct political purpose, whose development occupies one-half of
the drama.

Orestes, pursued by the avenging Furies, "Gorgon-like, vested in sable
stoles, their locks entwined with clustering snakes," has fled to Delphi
to invoke the aid of Apollo. He clasps the navel-stone and in his
exhaustion falls asleep. Around him sleep the Furies. The play opens
with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar in front of the
temple. The interior of the sa