From Professor J. S. Blackie’s translation of the _Agamemnon_ (Everyman’s Library). Footnote 14: From Professor G. Murray’s translation of part of the _Agamemnon_ in his _Ancient Greek Literature_ (William Heinemann). Footnote 15: From Professor Lewis Campbell’s translation of the _Agamemnon_ (Clarendon Press). _Æschylus: Electra_ The Æschylean Trilogy pauses at the point of Clytemnestra’s triumph. The first drama, the _Agamemnon_, ends there. We left the queen tasting the joy of revenge, but by no means gloating heartlessly over Agamemnon’s fall. She was conscious of the magnitude of the event; and the awfulness of her deed would have daunted even her strong spirit had she not been confident that she was the instrument of destiny in striking down the proud and cruel king. The friends of Agamemnon, the loyal faction which should have risen against her, must have been few and weak. They were evidently soon subdued. They could not stand against the force of her powerful will; and, moreover, she combined with her strength a wise tact and a keen sense of justice. Doubtless these qualities had gone far to establish her government in Agamemnon’s long absence. Her sway was no new thing to the people of Argos; and when she resumed it with Egisthus as her consort, she took up the thread of her former life, with little outward sign to mark the change. Underneath the surface of national life, wrath and horror at the murder of the king must have smouldered. Inside the palace itself, as we shall see presently, there was a small party ardently devoted to his memory and to the cause of his absent son, Orestes. But they were no match for Clytemnestra; and she in her turn, having shaken off the nightmare of fear in which she had lived for so many years, proposed to herself a future that should cleanse and sweeten all the past. Her first emotion was one of intense relief, not only from the long strain of suspense, but from the fact that now, as she firmly believed, the old curse upon the house of Atreus had at last been fulfilled. Her hand had dealt the final blow; the last life demanded by that implacable spirit had now been offered up. Henceforward it only remained to wipe out the past by just rule and sober living. So for a time—we do not know quite how long—she lulled herself in false security. Years may have passed in this ominous calm: memory fell asleep, and she lived serenely in a present that was full of such interest and action as her mind delighted in. In such a mood, she would not observe, or would disregard, small signs of disaffection around her. Day by day she would see the sad face of her daughter Electra; but until some shock came to awaken her sleeping soul, Electra’s accusing eyes would fall upon her unheeded. The awakening came at last, however; and it is at this point that Æschylus opens the second part of his Trilogy, in the drama called the _Choephorœ, or Libation-Bearers_.