her, and she is bound to persist.... In her long speech it is
scarcely to Electra that she is chiefly speaking; it is to the Chorus,
perhaps to her own bondmaids; to any or all of the people whose shrinking
so frets her." (_Independent Review, l.c._)

P. 65, l. 1011, Cast his child away.]--The Greek fleet assembled for Troy
was held by contrary winds at Aulis, in the Straits of Euboea, and the
whole expedition was in danger of breaking up. The prophets demanded a
human sacrifice, and Agamemnon gave his own daughter, Iphigenia. He
induced Clytemnestra to send her to him, by the pretext that Achilles had
asked for her in marriage.

P. 66, l. 1046, Which led me to the men he hated.]--It made Clytemnestra's
crime worse, that her accomplice was the blood-foe.

Pp. 65-68. As elsewhere in Euripides, these two speeches leave the matter
undecided. He does not attempt to argue the case out. He gives us a flash
of light, as it were, upon Clytemnestra's mind and then upon Electra's.
Each believes what she is saying, and neither understands the whole truth.
It is clear that Clytemnestra, being left for ten years utterly alone, and
having perhaps something of Helen's temperament about her, naturally fell
in love with the Lord of a neighbouring castle; and having once committed
herself, had no way of saving her life except by killing her husband, and
afterwards either killing or keeping strict watch upon Orestes and
Electra. Aegisthus, of course, was deliberately plotting to carry out his
blood-feud and to win a great kingdom.

P. 72, l. 1156, For the flying heart too fond.]--The text is doubtful, but
this seems to be the literal translation, and the reference to
Clytemnestra is intelligible enough.

P. 73, l. 1157, The giants' cloud-capped ring.]--The great walls of
Mycenae, built by the Cyclopes; cf. _Trojan Women_, p. 64, "Where the
towers of the giants shine O'er Argos cloudily."

P. 75, l. 1201, Back, back in the wind and rain.]--The only explicit moral
judgment of the Chorus; cf. note on l. 878.

P. 77, l. 1225, I touched with my hand thy sword.]--_i.e._, Electra
dropped her own sword in horror, then in a revulsion of feeling laid her
hand upon Orestes' sword--out of generosity, that he might not bear his
guilt alone.

P. 78, l. 1241, An Argive ship.]--This may have been the ship of Menelaus,
which was brought to Argos by Castor and Polydeuces, see l. 1278. _Helena_
1663. The ships labouring in the "Sicilian sea" (p. 82