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Rh mother Clytemnestra will soon arrive. The time is night, the "brave o'erhanging firmament" is studded with stars. The only sounds audible are the tramp of sentinels, and the challenge of the watch: the camp is wrapt in deep slumber:—

"The king of men" is much agitated by some secret grief. By the light of a "blazing lamp" he is writing a letter:—

The cause for the perturbation of his spirit is this: the Grecian fleet has been detained at Aulis by thwarting winds, and Calchas, the seer, has declared that Agamemnon's daughter must be sacrificed to Diana, irate with him because he has shot, while hunting, one of her sacred deer. Unwittingly the Grecian commander has, in order to conciliate her, vowed that he will offer to her the most beautiful creature that the year of his child's birth has produced. He has been persuaded by his brother Menelaus to summon Iphigenia to Aulis, on the pretext of giving her in marriage to Achilles. He has sent a letter to Argos, directing Clytemnestra to bring the maiden to the camp without delay. Soon, however, the father recoils from this deceit,