But to the Senators only one thing is clear. A terrible crime has been committed: their king has been foully slain. All Clytemnestra’s pleas in extenuation of the deed are wasted words. To them the situation is tragically simple: her guilt is plain; there is but one word that fits her—murderess. There is no question for them of reason or of motive. What she claims to be a righteous judgment upon Agamemnon, they declare to be a crime demanding punishment. But they are not strong enough to enforce their will; and when they threaten Clytemnestra with banishment, she answers with scorn. “_That is your sentence. I must fly the land With public execration on my head. Wise justicers! What said ye, then, to him Who slew his child, nor recked of her dear blood More than if sacrificing some ewe-lamb From countless flocks that choked the teeming fold, But slew the priceless travail of my womb For a charm, to allay the wind from Thrace?..._” “_Then hear my oath. By mighty Justice, Final avenger of my murdered child, By Atè and Erinys, gods of power, To whom I sacrificed this man, I look not For danger as an inmate, whiles our hearth Is lightened by Aegisthus, evermore, As hitherto, constant in love to me; My shield, my courage!_“[15] [Illustration: CLYTÆMNESTRA _Hon. John Collier_ _By permission from the original picture in the Guildhall Art Gallery_ ] Then, as the elders mourn the death of the king and the demon of vengeance that haunts the house, Clytemnestra, in passionate conviction, declares that she has been merely an instrument of that spirit of vengeance. “_But I Here make my compact with the hellish Power That haunts the house of Atreus. What has been, Though hard, we will endure. But let him leave This roof, and plague some other race henceforth With kindred-harrowing strife. Small share of wealth Shall amply serve, now I have made an end Of mutual-murdering madness in this hall._“[15] She comforts herself with the thought that now at last the Furies are appeased. No doubt of her own motives assails her: no warning hint that crime is not cancelled by fresh crime. In the first glow of triumph she has no premonition of the return of an avenging son. She proposes to herself a reign of peace with Egisthus which shall erase all memory of the past. “_Might but this be all of sorrow, we would bargain now for peace.... I and thou together ruling with a firm and even hand, Will control and keep in order both the palace and the land._“[15] On this note of false security the _Agamemnon_ closes; and for the fate of Clytemnestra, which now becomes bound up with the story of Electra, we must go to the second drama of the trilogy, the _Libation-bearers_. ----- Footnote 13: