thal to
Castor. He was her kinsman: see below on l. 990.

Pp. 22-23, ll. 300-337.]--In this wonderful outbreak, observe the mixture
of all sorts of personal resentments and jealousies with the devotion of
the lonely woman to her father and her brother. "So men say," is an
interesting touch; perhaps conscience tells her midway that she does not
quite believe what she is saying. So is the self-conscious recognition of
her "bitter burning brain" that interprets all things in a sort of
distortion.--Observe, too, how instinctively she turns to the peasant for
sympathy in the strain of her emotion. It is his entrance, perhaps, which
prevents Orestes from being swept away and revealing himself. The
peasant's courage towards two armed men is striking, as well as his
courtesy and his sanity. He is the one character in the play not somehow
tainted with blood-madness.

P. 27, ll. 403, 409.]--Why does Electra send her husband to the Old Man?
Not, I think, really for want of the food. It would have been easier to
borrow (p. 12, l. 191) from the Chorus; and, besides, what the peasant
says is no doubt true, that, if she liked, she could find "many a pleasant
thing" in the house. I think she sends for the Old Man because he is the
only person who would know Orestes (p. 21, l. 285). She is already, like
the Leader (p. 26, l. 401), excited by hopes which she will not confess.
This reading makes the next scene clearer also.

Pp. 28-30, ll. 432-487, O for the Ships of Troy.]--The two main Choric
songs of this play are markedly what Aristotle calls [Greek: embolima]
"things thrown in." They have no effect upon the action, and form little
more than musical "relief." Not that they are positively irrelevant.
Agamemnon is in our minds all through the play, and Agamemnon's glory is
of course enhanced by the mention of Troy and the praises of his
subordinate king, Achilles.

Thetis, the Nereid, or sea-maiden, was won to wife by Peleus. (He wrestled
with her on the seashore, and never loosed hold, though she turned into
divers strange beings--a lion, and fire, and water, and sea-beasts.) She
bore him Achilles, and then, unable permanently to live with a mortal,
went back beneath the sea. When Achilles was about to sail to Troy, she
and her sister Nereids brought him divine armour, and guided his ships
across the Aegean. The designs on Achilles' armour, as on Heracles'
shield, form a fairly common topic of poetry.

The descriptions of the desi