dinarily eloquent poetry.

P. 47 ff., ll. 699 ff.]--The Golden Lamb. The theft of the Golden Lamb is
treated as a story of the First Sin, after which all the world was changed
and became the poor place that it now is. It was at least the First Sin in
the blood-feud of this drama.

The story is not explicitly told. Apparently the magic lamb was brought by
Pan from the gods, and given to Atreus as a special grace and a sign that
he was the true king. His younger brother, Thyestes, helped by Atreus'
wife, stole it and claimed to be king himself. So good was turned into
evil, and love into hatred, and the stars shaken in their courses.

[It is rather curious that the Lamb should have such a special effect upon
the heavens and the weather. It is the same in Plato (_Polit._ 268 ff.),
and more definitely so in the treatise _De Astrologia,_ attributed to
Lucian, which says that the Golden Lamb is the constellation Aries, "The
Ram." Hugo Winckler (_Weltanschauung des alten Orients_, pp. 30, 31)
suggests that the story is a piece of Babylonian astronomy misunderstood.
It seems that the vernal equinox, which is now moving from the Ram into
the Fish, was in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. moving from the Bull
into the Ram. Now the Bull, Marduk, was the special god of Babylon, and
the time when he yielded his place to the Ram was also, as a matter of
fact, the time of the decline of Babylon. The gradual advance of the Ram
not only upset the calendar, and made all the seasons wrong; but seemed,
since it coincided with the fall of the Great City, to upset the world in
general! Of course Euripides would know nothing of this. He was apparently
attracted to the Golden Lamb merely by the quaint beauty of the story.]

P. 50, l. 746, Thy brethren even now.]--Castor and Polydeuces, who were
received into the stars after their death. See below, on l. 990.

P. 51, l. 757, That answer bids me die.]--Why? Because Orestes, if he won
at all, would win by a surprise attack, and would send news instantly. A
prolonged conflict, without a message, would mean that Orestes and Pylades
were being overpowered. Of course she is wildly impatient.

P. 51, l. 765, Who an thou? I mistrust thee.]--Just as she mistrusted the
Old Man's signs. See above, p. 89.

P. 52 ff., ll. 774 ff.]--Messenger's Speech. This speech, though swift
and vivid, is less moving and also less sympathetic than most of the
Messengers' Speeches. Less moving, because the slaying o