P. 65, l. 1011, Cast his child away.]--The Greek fleet assembled for Troy was held by contrary winds at Aulis, in the Straits of Euboea, and the whole expedition was in danger of breaking up. The prophets demanded a human sacrifice, and Agamemnon gave his own daughter, Iphigenîa. He induced Clytemnestra to send her to him, by the pretext that Achilles had asked for her in marriage. P. 66, l. 1046, Which led me to the men he hated.]--It made Clytemnestra's crime worse, that her accomplice was the blood-foe. Pp. 65-68. As elsewhere in Euripides, these two speeches leave the matter undecided. He does not attempt to argue the case out. He gives us a flash of light, as it were, upon Clytemnestra's mind and then upon Electra's. Each believes what she is saying, and neither understands the whole truth. It is clear that Clytemnestra, being left for ten years utterly alone, and having perhaps something of Helen's temperament about her, naturally fell in love with the Lord of a neighbouring castle; and having once committed herself, had no way of saving her life except by killing her husband, and afterwards either killing or keeping strict watch upon Orestes and Electra. Aegisthus, of course, was deliberately plotting to carry out his blood-feud and to win a great kingdom. P. 72, l. 1156, For the flying heart too fond.]--The text is doubtful, but this seems to be the literal translation, and the reference to Clytemnestra is intelligible enough. P. 73, l. 1157, The giants' cloud-capped ring.]--The great walls of Mycenae, built by the Cyclôpes; cf. _Trojan Women_, p. 64, "Where the towers of the giants shine O'er Argos cloudily." P. 75, l. 1201, Back, back in the wind and rain.]--The only explicit moral judgment of the Chorus; cf. note on l. 878. P. 77, l. 1225, I touched with my hand thy sword.]--_i.e._, Electra dropped her own sword in horror, then in a revulsion of feeling laid her hand upon Orestes' sword--out of generosity, that he might not bear his guilt alone. P. 78, l. 1241, An Argive ship.]--This may have been the ship of Menelaus, which was brought to Argos by Castor and Polydeuces, see l. 1278. _Helena_ 1663. The ships labouring in the "Sicilian sea" (p. 82, l. 1347) must have suggested to the audience the ships of the great expedition against Sicily, then drawing near to its destruction. The Athenian fleet was destroyed early in September 413 B.C.: this play was probably produced in the spring of the same year, at which time the last reinforcements were being sent out. P. 78, l. 1249.]--Marriage of Pylades and Electra. A good example of the essentially historic nature of Greek tragedy. No one would have invented a marriage between Electra and Pylades for the purposes of this play. It is even a little disturbing. But it is here, because it was a fixed fact in the tradition (cf. _Iphigenia in Tauris_, l. 915 ff.), and could not be ignored. Doubtless these were people living who claimed descent from Pylades and Electra.