Clytæmnestra is Æschylus’ masterpiece—not indeed a masterly picture of female character; such work was left to others—but a superb presentment of a woman dowered with an imperial soul, pressed into sin by the memory of her murdered child, the blind ambition of her husband, and the consciousness of an accursed ancestry. Here, as elsewhere in these three tragedies, the architectural skill with which Æschylus plans his trilogy invite the closest study. In this first part, all the justification which Clytæmnestra can claim is held steadily before the eyes. The slaughter of Iphigenia, which killed her love for Agamemnon, is dwelt upon early in the play and recalled by her once and again during her horrible conversation with the chorus after the king’s death. Another wrong to her is brought visibly upon the scene in the person of Cassandra. The sordid side of her vengeance, her amour with Ægisthus, remains hardly hinted at until the very end, where it springs into overwhelming prominence—but at the very moment when we are preparing to pass over to the _Choephorœ_, the second great stage of the action, in which the mission of Orestes is to be exalted. Clytæmnestra has been often compared to Lady Macbeth. But Shakespeare’s creation is more feminine than that of the Athenian. She evinces inhuman heartlessness and cynicism till the task is accomplished; before the play ends she is broken for ever. Clytæmnestra never falters in her resolution, hardly a quiver reveals the strain of danger and excitement upon her nerves while success is still unsure. When the deed is accomplished and the strain relaxed, then, instead of yielding to hysterical collapse, she is superbly collected.[233] Years after, she re-appears in the _Choephorœ_, but time, security, and power have, to all seeming, left little mark upon this soul of iron. At the last frightful moment when she realizes that vengeance is knocking at the gate, her courage blazes up more gloriously than ever: “Give me the axe, this instant, wherewith that man was slain”.[234] It is a superb defiance; for thrilling audacity this passage stands perhaps alone until we come to the splendid “Stand neuter, Gods, this once, I do invoke you,” with which Vanbrugh[235] rises, for his moment, into the heights where Æschylus abode. Yet next moment the knowledge that her lover is dead brings her to her knees.