traordinary number of solutions of the problem has been proposed. The
reader must not look for one of these, however, in the 'Prometheus
Unbound' of Shelley, who deliberately rejected the supposition of a
reconciliation.

The three remaining plays are founded on the woful myth of the house of
Atreus, son of Pelops, a theme much treated by the Greek tragic poets.
They constitute the only existing Greek trilogy, and are the last and
greatest work of the poet. They were brought out at Athens, B.C. 458,
two years after the author's death. The 'Agamemnon' sets forth the
crime,--the murder, by his wife, of the great King, on his return home
from Troy; the 'Choephori,' the vengeance taken on the guilty wife by
her own son; the 'Eumenides,' the atonement made by that son in
expiation of his mother's murder.

Agamemnon on departing for Troy left behind him in his palace a son and
a daughter, Orestes and Electra. Orestes was exiled from home by his
mother Clytemnestra, who in Agamemnon's absence lived in guilty union
with Aegisthus, own cousin of the King, and who could no longer endure
to look upon the face of her son.

The scene of the 'Agamemnon' is the royal palace in Argos. The time is
night. A watchman is discovered on the flat roof of the palace. For a
year he has kept weary vigil there, waiting for the beacon-fire that,
sped from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall announce the fall of Troy.
The signal comes at last, and joyously he proclaims the welcome news.
The sacrificial fires which have been made ready in anticipation of the
event are set alight throughout the city. The play naturally falls into
three divisions. The first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders,
Clytemnestra, and a Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and
of the calamitous return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of
Agamemnon with Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second
comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to
fall upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict
between the Chorus, still faithful to the murdered King, and
Clytemnestra, beside whom stands her paramour Aegisthus.

Interest centres in Clytemnestra. Crafty, unscrupulous, resolute,
remorseless, she veils her deadly hatred for her lord, and welcomes him
home in tender speech:--

"So now, dear lord, I bid thee welcome home--
True as the faithful watchdog of the fold,
Strong as the mainstay of the