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148 The welcome is, after all, not so enthusiastic as it might be.

The king greets his native land and his country's gods, and describes the state of the defeated city. He is grand as he stands there, a true representative of the heroic age, and tells us how Atè's hurricane howls through the smoking town, and how the Greek nobles leapt forth from the fatal horse.

But still the king of men remembers the dangers of prosperity, and tempers his exultation with regret for the calamities of many of his friends. He is just about to go modestly into his palace without pomp, when the traitress, gorgeously decked out to meet her husband, enters on the scene.

"According to the simplicity," says Potter, "of ancient manners, Clytemnestra should have waited to receive her husband in the house; but her affected fondness led her to disregard decorum. Nothing can be conceived more artful than her speech; but that shows that her heart had little share in it; her pretended sufferings during his absence are touched with great delicacy and tenderness; but had they been real, she would not have stopped him with the querulous recital; the joy for his return, had she felt that joy, would have broke out first; this is deferred to the latter part of her address; then, indeed, she has amassed every image expressive of emotion; but her solicitude to assemble these leads her beyond nature, which expresses her strong passions in broken sentences, and with a nervous brevity, not with the cold formality of a set harangue. Her last