Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/303

 TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES IN PARTICULAR. 277 by the right-hand side- door (v. 103) to repeat these offerings at the temples in the city ; and she does not reappear till the end of the first choral song (v. 254), when she comes forward to the front of the stage and enters into colloquy with the leaders of the chorus. She explains to the chorus why she has offered a sacrifice of thanks- giving, and after a vivid description of the manner in which the message of the caj^ture of Troy was transmitted by a series of beacons, and of the contrast between the victors and the vanquished in the captured city, she again retires by the center door into her palace. Hereupon follows the first stasimon of the chorus (w. 357 — 488). And a considerable lapse of time is supposed to inter- vene. In most of the editions it is supposed that Clyttemnestra returns to the stage at the commencement of the next episode, and that she speaks the words which indicate the approach of the herald (vv. 489 — 500); but it is generally the business of the chorus to announce the entrance of a new character, the herald addresses himself to the chorus down to v. 582, and the name of Clytaemnestra is mentioned first in v. 585; it seems therefore clear that Hermann is right in assigning the first words of the episode to the chorus, and whether Clytaemnestra re-enters from the house at V. 587, or a few verses before, it is obvious that she takes no part in the dialogue till she makes that speech, where the word iraXai must be understood in its largest sense. The herald, who is pro- bably the Homeric Talthybius, had entered of course by the side- door on the left, behind the jperiactos representing the road to Nauplia ; and he withdraws by the same door, for the queen charges him with a message to her husband. After the second stasimon (vv. 681 — 781), a few anapaestic lines introduce the triumphal procession of Agamemnon, who drives into the orchestra in a mule-chariot, accompanied by the captive Casandra, and followed by a retinue of attendants. He does not mount the stage till v. 957, when he reluctantly sets his foot on the costly carpets and follows his treacherous wife into the palace. It is clear from v. 1054 [ireiOov XiiTovoa TovK afjLa^-qpr] Opovov) that Casandra remains in the orches- tra, seated still in the mule-chariot. It is probable that the armed attendants of Agamemnon also remain in the orchestra. The ad- dress in V. 1651, ela hr) |^i'0o9 iTpoKWjTov 7rd<; ri? evrpeTTL^irco, would hardly apply to the aged chorus consisting, as we shall see, of only twelve persons. After the gloomy strains of the third stasimon