aving the Spearmen in possession._ CLYTEMNESTRA _and_ AIGISTHOS _turn
and enter the Palace._]

NOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON

The chief characters in the play belong to one family, as is shown by the
two genealogies:--

I.

TANTALUS
|
Pelops
|
---------------------------
| |
Atreus Thyestes
| |
----------------- |
| | |
Agamemnon Menelaus Aigisthos
(= Clytemnestra) (= Helen) (= Clytemnestra)
|
------------------------
| | |
Iphigenia Electra Orestes

(Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios, and
was the mother of Pylades.)

II.

Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus
| |
----------- -------------------------
| | | |
Clytemnestra Castor Polydeuces Helen

P. 1, l. 1.]--The Watchman, like most characters in Greek tragedy, comes
from the Homeric tradition, though in Homer (Od. iv. 524) he is merely a
servant of Aigisthos.

P. 2, l. 28, Women's triumph cry.]--This cry of the women recurs several
times in the play: cf. p. 26, ll. 587 ff., p. 55, l. 1234. It is
conventionally represented by "ololu"; as the cry to Apollo, Paian is
"I-e," l. 146, and Cassandra's sob is "ototoi" or "otototoi," p. 47.

Pp. 3 f., ll. 40 ff.]--With this silent scene of Clytemnestra's, compare
the long silence of Cassandra below, and the silence of Prometheus in that
play until his torturers have left him. See the criticism of Aeschylus in
Aristophanes, _Frogs_, ll. 911-920, pp. 68, 69 in my translation.

P. 5, l. 104, Sign of the War-Way.]--i.e. an ominous sign seen by the army
as it started on its journey. In Homer, Iliad, ll. 305-329, it is a snake
which eats the nine young of a mother bird and then the mother, and is
turned into stone afterwards.--All through this chorus the language of the
prophet Calchas is intentionally obscure and riddling--the style of
prophesy.

P. 7, l. 146, But I-e, i-e.]--(Pronounce _Ee-ay_.) Calchas, catching sight
in his vision of the further consequences which Artemis will exact if she
fulfils the sign, calls on