is own land, far from
the city, neither a slave nor a slave-master; "the men," as Euripides says
in the _Orestes_ (920), "who alone save a nation." (Cf, _Bac_., p. 115
foot, and below, p. 26, ll. 367-390.) As Euripides became more and more
alienated from the town democracy he tended, like Tolstoy and others, to
idealise the workers of the soil.

P. 6, l. 62, Children to our enemy.]--Cf. 626. Soph. _El_. 589. They do
not seem to be in existence at the time of the play.

Pp. 5-6.]--Electra's first two speeches are admirable as expositions of
her character--the morbid nursing of hatred as a duty, the deliberate
posing, the impulsiveness, the quick response to kindness.

P. 7, l. 82, Pylades.]--Pylades is a _persona muta_ both here and in
Sophocles' _Electra_, a fixed traditional figure, possessing no quality
but devotion to Orestes. In Aeschylus' _Libation-Bearers_ he speaks only
once, with tremendous effect, at the crisis of the play, to rebuke Orestes
when his heart fails him. In the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, however, and still
more in the _Orestes_, he is a fully studied character.

P. 10, l. 151, A swan crying alone.]--Cf. _Bacchae_, p. 152, "As yearns
the milk-white swan when old swans die."

P. 11, ll. 169 ff., The Watcher hath cried this day.]--Hera was an old
Pelasgian goddess, whose worship was kept in part a mystery from the
invading Achaeans or Dorians. There seems to have been a priest born "of
the ancient folk," _i.e._, a Pelasgian or aboriginal Mycenaean, who, by
some secret lore--probably some ancient and superseded method of
calculating the year--knew when Hera's festival was due, and walked round
the country three days beforehand to announce it. He drank "the milk of
the flock" and avoided wine, either from some religious taboo, or because
he represented the religion of the milk-drinking mountain shepherds.

P. 13, ll. 220 ff.]--Observe Electra's cowardice when surprised; contrast
her courage, p. 47, when sending Orestes off, and again her quick drop to
despair when the news does not come soon enough.

P. 16, ll. 247 ff., I am a wife.... O better dead!]--Rather ungenerous,
when compared with her words on p. 6. (Cf. also her words on pp. 24 and
26.) But she feels this herself, almost immediately. Orestes naturally
takes her to mean that her husband is one of Aegisthus' friends. This
would have ruined his plot. (Cf. above, p. 8, l. 98.)

P. 22, l. 312, Castor.]--I know no other mention of Electra's betro