[427]. Perhaps, simply “the sharp and bitter cry.” But the rendering in the text seems justified as repeating the wish already expressed (v. 260), that the murderers may die by this form of death.
[428]. The Chorus at this point renew their words and cries of lamentation, smiting on their breasts. By some critics this speech and Antistrophe VII. are assigned to Electra, Antistrophe VIII. to the Chorus, with a corresponding change in the pronouns “my” and “thy.” The Chorus, as consisting of Troïan captives, is represented as adopting the more vehement Asiatic forms of wailing. Among these the Arians, Kissians, and Mariandynians (Pers. 920) seem to have been most conspicuous for their skill in lamentation, and, as such, were in request where hired mourners were wanted. Compare the opening chorus, v. 22.
[429]. The practice of mutilating the corpse of a murdered man by cutting off his hands and feet and fastening them round his waist, seems to have been looked on as rendering him powerless to seek for vengeance. Comp. Soph. Elect. v. 437. This kind of mutilation, and not mere wanton outrage, is what the Chorus refer to.
[430]. As in v. 351 the loss of honour among the dead was represented as one consequence of the absence of funereal rites from those who loved the dead, so here the restoration of the children to their rights appears as the condition without which that dishonour must continue. If they succeed, then, and then only, can they offer funereal banquets, year by year, as was the custom. There may be a special reference to an Argive custom mentioned by Plutarch (Quæst. Græc., c. 24) of sacrificing immediately after the death of a relative to Apollo, and thirty days later to Hermes.
[431]. Another reference to the third cup of undiluted wine which men drank to the honour of Zeus the Preserver. Comp. Agam. v. 245.
[432]. Possibly the pronoun refers to Pylades.
[433]. The story of Althæa has perhaps been made most familiar to English readers by Mr. Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon. More briefly told, the legend ran that she, being the wife of Œneus, bare a son, who was believed to be the child of Ares—that the Fates came to her when the boy, who was named Meleagros, was seven days old, and told her that his life should last until the firebrand then burning on the earth should be consumed. She took the firebrand and quenched it, and laid it by in a chest; but when Meleagros grew up, he joined in the chase of the great boar of Calydon, and when he had slain it, gave the skin as a trophy to Atalanta, and when his mother's brothers, the sons of Thestios, claimed it as their right, he waxed wroth with them and slew them. And then Althæa, in her grief, caring more for her brothers than her son, took the brand from the chest, and threw it into the fire, and so Meleagros died. Phrynichos is said to have made the myth the subject of a drama. In Homer (Il. x. 566), Althæa brings about her son's death by her curses.
[434]. Skylla (not to be confounded with the sea-monster of Messina) was the daughter of Nisos, king of Megaris, who had on his head a lock of purple hair, which was a charm that preserved his life from all danger. And the Cretans under Minos attacked Nisos, and besieged him in his city; and Minos won the love of Skylla, and tempted her with gifts, and she cut off her father's lock of hair, and so he perished. But Minos, scorning her for her deed, bound her by the feet to the stern of his ship and drowned her.
[435]. Hermes, i.e., in his office as the escort of the souls of the dead to Hades.
[436]. The Chorus apparently is represented as on the point of completing its catalogue of crimes committed by women with the story of Clytæmnestra's guilt. Something leads them to check themselves, and they are contented with a dark and vague allusion.