Why must he rise, like some
monster from the grave, unkillable? Gradually she recovers her calm,
explains clearly the suspicious point of Orestes' absence, and heaps up
her words and gestures of welcome to an almost oriental fullness (which
Agamemnon rebukes, ll. 918 ff., p. 39). Again, at the end, when she finds
that for the time she is safe, her real feelings almost break out.

P. 38.]--What is the motive of the Crimson Tapestries? I think the
tangling robe must have been in the tradition, as the murder in the bath
certainly was. One motive, of course, is obvious: Clytemnestra is tempting
Agamemnon to sin or "go too far." He tries to resist, but the splendour of
an oriental homecoming seduces him and he yields. But is that enough to
account for such a curious trait in the story, and one so strongly
emphasized? We are told afterwards that Clytemnestra threw over her victim
an "endless web," long and rich (p. 63), to prevent his seeing or using
his arms. And I cannot help suspecting that this endless web was the same
as the crimson pall.

If one tries to conjecture the origin of this curious story, it is perhaps
a clue to realize that the word _droite_ means both a bath and a
sarcophagus, or rather that the thing called droite, a narrow stone or
marble vessel about seven feet long, was in pre-classical and
post-classical times used as a sarcophagus, but in classical times chiefly
or solely as a bath. If among the prehistoric graves at Mycenae some later
peasants discovered a royal mummy or skeleton in a sarcophagus, wrapped in
a robe of royal crimson, and showing signs of violent death--such as
Schliemann believed that he discovered--would they not say: "We found the
body of a King murdered in a bath, and wrapped round and round in a great
robe?"

P. 39 f.]--Agamemnon is going through the process of temptation. He
protests rather too often and yields.

P. 39, l. 931, Tell me but this.]--This little dialogue is very
characteristic of Aeschylus. Euripides would have done it at three times
the length and made all the points clear. In Aeschylus the subtlety is
there, but it is not easy to follow.

P. 40, l. 945, These bound slaves.]--i.e. his shoes. The metaphor shows
the trend of his unconscious mind.

P. 41, l. 950, This princess.]--This is the first time that the attention
of the audience is drawn to Cassandra. She too is one of Aeschylus' silent
figures. I imagine her pale, staring in front of her, almost as if in