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xxii However this may be, what I wish to point out is that all traces of immature work have disappeared, when we reach the Trilogy. The sonorous verse remains, but the exaggerated style is gone. The ponderous imprecations of the Prometheus or the Seven against Thebes have turned to verse like this:

Occasionally, as in the prophecy of Calchas, the oracular style is purposely assumed; or, as in The Furies, l. 285 sqq.) a scene of monstrous horrors is described in monstrous terms; but of real bombast, of large language misapplied, there is no more. With this disappearance, a new faculty has arisen: a dramatic art of the most admirable kind. Not even the excellent double interest of the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles is superior to the scene of Clytemnestra's welcome of Agamemnon, with its effusive insincerity and ominous words of double and deadly meaning. The whole character of Clytemnestra is a refutation of those who maintain that we may find poetry in Æschylus, but must go to Sophocles or Euripides for drama. Nor must we omit to notice the marvellous art displayed in the whole episode of Cassandra. Her spirit is utterly full of Apollo, the Sun-God, the Slayer of Night: a mention, nay, a mere hint of him (, l. 1255) banishes in a moment her brief sanity, and she bursts into ravings again. She is penetrated with the "fire intolerant and intense" of his coming, of the sunrise of prophecy burning brighter and clearer, while in its light the great waves of doom roll up and on. His approach is a scorching glow of fire, before his presence is revealed,