THE 'AGAMEMNON* AND 'TRACHINI^* 17 



the climax can hardly come when the stage is empty. Mere 

 incident will not affect an audience to the utmost ; for this the 

 presence of a great actor is required. After the cry the hearers 

 would be in a state of horror and suspense, very well represented 

 by the trembling, undecided crowd of old men. The real climax 

 comes when, doors thrown wide, Clytemnestra advances, defiant, 

 axe in hand, and glories in her deed. 



Here again is a situation which might make a Rachel or a 

 Siddons rise from the dead if they could have a stage to act 

 it on : 



Every word strong, every word capable of receiving a true and 

 forcible intonation. Browning puts it : 



Much having been before to purpose spoken, 

 The opposite to say I shall not shamed be. 



From this the reader can gather that ^Eschylus put into Cly- 

 temnestra's lips words by which she defiantly defends herself 

 against the charge of cowardly deceit. She anticipates accu- 

 sation, and answers not the charge of murder, but the charge of 

 lying. What the reader cannot gather is the forcible and 

 splendid burst of language in which this is expressed. In 

 English the suspended sense of the first clause is a fault which 

 in a schoolboy's exercise would be corrected by his master. 

 ' Having been spoken,' with its weak little words all scattered, 

 is no representative of the Greek slpTj/jisvcov. ( To purpose ' is 

 obscure and affected where icaiplws is clear. 1 1 shall not shamed 

 be ' is neither English nor Greek. The Greek future is a single 

 word corresponding in no way to the awkward inversion and 

 unusual use of ' shamed.' No actress could produce her effect 

 with such a speech, and yet Mr. Browning is called a dramatic 

 poet. Assuredly he could have done much better had he not 

 deliberately chosen to do the wrong thing. 



Clytemnestra and the chorus wrangle. ^Egisthus comes on 

 and bullies, and finally the play subsides without solution. The 

 old men are cowed, and Clytemnestra in a grand way forgives 

 them. The play is a prologue to the great act of the Oresteia 

 related in the * Choephoroi.' 



VOL. i. C 



