Agamemnon, like the Great King of Persia,
used a chain of beacons across the Aegean.--Note how vividly
Clytemnestra's imagination is working in her excitement. She seems to see
before her every leaping light in the chain, just as in the next speech
she imagines the scene in Troy almost with the intensity of a vision.

P. 14, l. 314, Victory in the first as in the last.]--All are Victory
beacons; the spirit of Victory infects them all equally. Cf. l. 854 below,
where Agamemnon prays that the Victory which is now with him, or in him,
may abide.

P. 15, l. 348, A woman's word.]--Her hatred and fear of Agamemnon, making
her feel vividly the horrors of the sack and the peril overhanging the
conquerors, have carried her dangerously far. She checks herself and
apologizes for her womanlike anxiety. Cf. l. 1661, p. 77.

P. 18, ll. 409 ff., Seers they saw visions.]--A difficult and uncertain
passage. I think the seers attached to the royal household
(cf. _Libation-Bearers,_ l. 37, where they are summoned to read a dream)
were rather like what we call clairvoyants. Being consulted, they look
into some pool of liquid or the like; there they see gradually emerging
the palace, the injured King, the deserted room, and at last a wraith of
Helen herself, haunting the place.

P. 21, l. 487.]--This break in the action, covering a space of several
days, was first pointed out by Dr. Walter Headlam. Incidentally it removes
the gravest of the difficulties raised by Dr. Verrall in his famous essay
upon the plot of the _Agamemnon_.

P. 21, l. 495, Dry dust, own brother to the mire of war.]--i.e. "I can see
by the state of his clothes, caked with dry dust which was once the mire
of battle, that he comes straight from the war and can speak with
knowledge." The Herald is probably (though perhaps not quite consistently)
conceived as having rushed post-haste with his news.

Pp. 22 ff., HERALD.]--The Herald bursts in overcome with excitement and
delight, full of love for his home and everything he sees. A marked
contrast to Agamemnon, ll. 810 ff. Note that his first speech confirms all
the worst fears suggested by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has committed all the
sins she prayed against, and more. The terrible lines 527 ff., "Till her
Gods' Houses, etc.," are very like a passage in the _Persae_, 811 ff.,
where exactly the same acts by the Persian invaders of Greece make their
future punishment inevitable.

P. 22, l. 509, Pythian Lord.]--Apollo is