The figures he brought into vivid relief joined hands with
menacing forms that faded away into the night of the future and the
past; while above them hung, intoning doom, the phantom host of Furies.
Yet at the outset of the drama all promises well. The watchman on the
roof of the palace, in the tenth year of his watch, catches sight at
last of the signal fire that announces the capture of Troy and the
speedy return of Agamemnon. With joy he proclaims to the House the
long-delayed and welcome news; yet even in the moment of exultation lets
slip a doubtful phrase hinting at something behind, which he dares not
name, something which may turn to despair the triumph of victory.
Hereupon enter the chorus of Argive elders, chanting as they move to the
measure of a stately march. They sing how ten years before Agamemnon and
Menelaus had led forth the host of Greece, at the bidding of the Zeus
who protects hospitality, to recover for Menelaus Helen his wife,
treacherously stolen by Paris. Then, as they take their places and begin
their rhythmic dance, in a strain of impassioned verse that is at once a
narrative and a lyric hymn, they tell, or rather present in a series of
vivid images, flashing as by illumination of lightning out of a night of
veiled and sombre boding, the tale of the deed that darkened the
starting of the host--the sacrifice of Iphigenia to the goddess whose
wrath was delaying the fleet at Aulis.
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