CHORAL HYMN. The text of this Chorus is a ruin, with here a pillar and there a pillar, some fragments of a broken cornice, and something like the cell of a god; but the rubbish is so thick, and the excavations so meagre, that perfect recovery of the original scheme is in some places impossible, and restoration in a great measure conjectural. Under these circumstances, with the help of the Commentators (chiefly PEILE and LIN.), I have endeavoured to piece out a connection between the few fragments that are intelligible; but I have been guided throughout more by a sort of poetical instinct than by any philological science, and have allowed myself all manner of liberties, convinced that in this case the most accurate translation is sure to be the worst. In the metre, I follow PEILE. Note 59 (p. 125). "Let's go aside, the deed being done, that we Seem not partakers of the bloody work." 'Tis a misfortune, arising from having such a body as a Chorus always on the stage, that they are often found to be spectators, where they cannot be partakers of a great work; and thus their attitude as secret sympathisers, afraid to show their real sentiments, becomes on many occasions the very reverse of heroic. This strikes us moderns very strongly, apt as we are, from previous associations, to take the Chorus along with the other characters of the play, and judge it accordingly; but to the Greeks, who felt that the Chorus was there only for the purpose of singing, criticisms of this kind were not likely to occur. Note 60 (p. 126). "I nursed thy childhood, and in peace would die." Clytemnestra says only that she wished to be allowed to spend her old age in peace; but she implies further, according to a natural feeling strongly expressed by Greek writers, that it was the special duty of her son to support her old age, and thus pay the fee of his nursing. Thus, in Homer, it is a constant lament over one who dies young in battle-- "Not to his parents The nursing fee (θρέπτρα) he paid." --IL. IV. 478. "In general it was accounted a great misfortune by the Greeks to die childless (ἄπαιδα γηράσκειν, Eurip. Ion. 621). And at Athens there was a law making it imperative on an heir to afford aliment to his mother."--KLAUSEN. Note 61 (p. 126). "Thou art a woman sitting in thy chamber." "Go to thy chamber, mother, and mind the business that suits thee; Tend the loom and the spindle, and give thy maidens the order Each to her separate work; but leave the bow and the arrows To the men and to me--for the man in the house is the master." ODYSSEY XXI. 350.