d fell
forward on the earth, still holding the dead maiden in his arms. And
when they brought the tidings of these things to Queen Eurydice, the
wife of King Creon and mother to the prince, she could not endure the
grief, being thus bereaved of her children, but laid hold of a sword
and slew herself therewith.

So the house of King Creon was left desolate unto him that day,
because he despised the ordinances of the gods.

THE STORY OF IPHIGENIA

King Agamemnon sat in his tent at Aulis, where the army of the Greeks
was gathered together, being about to sail against the great city of
Troy. And it was now past midnight; but the king slept not, for he was
careful and troubled about many things. And he had a lamp before him
and in his hand a tablet of pine wood, whereon he wrote. But he seemed
not to remain in the same mind about that which he wrote; for now he
would blot out the letters, and then would write them again; and now
he fastened the seal upon the tablet and then brake it. And as he did
this he wept and was like to a man distracted. But after a while he
called to an old man, his attendant (the man had been given in time
past by Tyndareus to his daughter, Queen Clytaemnestra) and said:

"Old man, thou knowest how Calchas the soothsayer bade me offer for a
sacrifice to Artemis, who is goddess of this place, my daughter
Iphigenia, saying that so only should the army have a prosperous
voyage from this place to Troy, and should take the city and destroy
it; and how when I heard these words I bade Talthybius the herald go
throughout the army and bid them depart, every man to his own country,
for that I would not do this thing; and how my brother, King Menelaues,
persuaded me so that I consented to it. Now, therefore, hearken to
this, for what I am about to tell thee three men only know, namely,
Calchas the soothsayer, and Menelaues, and Ulysses, king of Ithaca. I
wrote a letter to my wife the queen, that she should send her daughter
to this place, that she might be married to King Achilles; and I
magnified the man to her, saying that he would in no wise sail with us
unless I would give him my daughter in marriage. But now I have
changed my purpose and have written another letter after this fashion,
as I will now set forth to thee: '_Daughter of Leda, send not thy
child to the land of Euboea, for I will give her in marriage at
another time._'"

"Aye," said the old man, "but how wilt thou deal with King Achi