The scene of the 'Agamemnon' is the royal palace in Argos. The time is night. A watchman is discovered on the flat roof of the palace. For a year he has kept weary vigil there, waiting for the beacon-fire that, sped from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall announce the fall of Troy. The signal comes at last, and joyously he proclaims the welcome news. The sacrificial fires which have been made ready in anticipation of the event are set alight throughout the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict between the Chorus, still faithful to the murdered King, and Clytemnestra, beside whom stands her paramour Aegisthus. Interest centres in Clytemnestra. Crafty, unscrupulous, resolute, remorseless, she veils her deadly hatred for her lord, and welcomes him home in tender speech:-- "So now, dear lord, I bid thee welcome home-- True as the faithful watchdog of the fold, Strong as the mainstay of the laboring bark, Stately as column, fond as only child, Dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner, Bright as fair sunshine after winter's storms, Sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer-- All this, and more, thou art, dear love, to me." Agamemnon passes within the palace; she slays him in his bath, enmeshed in a net, and then, reappearing, vaunts her bloody deed: "I smote him, and he bellowed; and again I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way; And as he fell before me, with a third And last libation from the deadly mace, I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due, That subterranean Saviour--of the dead! At which he spouted up the Ghost in such A flood of purple as, bespattered with, No less did I rejoice than the green ear Rejoices in the largesse of the skies That fleeting Iris follows as it flies."