δόμων προφῆται. I have retained the original word here, because it appears most appropriate to the passage; but the reader must be warned, by a reference to the familiar example in Epist. Tit. I. 12, that with the ancients the characters of poet and prophet were confounded in a way that belongs not at all to our modern usage of the same words. Epimenides of Crete, in fact, to whom the Apostle Paul alludes, was not only a prophet, but also a physician, like Apollo (ἱατρόμαντις, Eumen. v. 62). In the same way the Hebrew word _Nabah_, prophetess, is applied to Miriam, Exod. xv. 20; and it may well be, that Æschylus, in the true spirit of these old times, and also following the deep religious inspiration of his Muse, alludes here to a character more sacred than the Homeric ἀοιδὸς, _Minstrel_ or _Bard_, and this distinction should, of course, be preserved in the translation. SEW. with great happiness, in my opinion, has given "the bards of fate;" but it were useless to press any such nice matter in this passage, especially when we call to mind the high estimation in which the Homeric ἀοιδὸς stands in the Odyss., and the remarkable passage, III. 267, where a minstrel is represented as appointed by Agamemnon to counsel and control Clytemnestra in his absence, pretty much as a family confessor would do in a modern Roman Catholic family. Note 44 (p. 54). "He silent stood in sadness, not in wrath." Here commences one of the most difficult, and at the same time one of the most beautiful passages in the Agamemnon. The words, πάρεστι σιγᾶς᾽, ἄτιμος, ἀλόιδορος ἅδιστος ἀφἐμένων ἰδεῖν, are so corrupt, that a translator is quite justified in striking that sense out of them which is most fit on grounds of taste, and in this view I have little hesitation in adopting Hermann's reading, {345} πάρεστι σιγὰς (σιγηλος) ἄτιμος ἀλόιδορος ἄληστος ἀφεμένων ἰδεῖν; modified thus by Orelli-- ἄπιστος ἀφεμέναν ἰδεῖν--(_See Wellauer_). With a reference to Menelaus and not to Helen. In doing so, I am not at all moved by any merely philological consideration; but I may observe that the remark made by WELL., PEILE, and CON., that the words cannot refer to Menelaus, because he has not yet been mentioned, can have little weight in the present chorus, in the first antistrophe of which Paris is first alluded to, by dim indications, and afterwards distinctly by name. This method of merely hinting at a person, before naming him, is common in all poetry, but peculiarly characteristic of Æschylus. Besides, it is impossible to deny that the πόθος in the next line refers to Menelaus, and can refer to no other. CON., who refers the words to Helen, translates thus-- "She stands in silence, scorned, yet unrebuking, Most sweetly sorrowfully looking Of brides that have from wedlock fled;"