Set free from roofless bivouac in frost and dew.
How they, the happy men, will sleep the livelong night
Unpicketed!”
Agamemnon enters in his chariot, with Cassandra, the captive princess of Troy, in his retinue, driving up from Nauplia. He addresses Argos and the gods. He boasts of the capture of Ilium. The interval necessary for the Ægean voyage is minimized—Troy’s ruins still smoulder sulkily:—
“From smoke still rising even now conspicuous
Is seen the captured city; blasts of ruin live;
From out the smould’ring ashes there keep jetting forth
Fat puffs of plunder!”
From the ruined wealth of Troy the thought is turned to the traditional costly splendour of the Argive palaces. Clytemnestra cunningly avails herself of Agamemnon’s only half-concealed vanity to cover her own murderous intent and, if possible, to transfer to his account, in the eyes of the gods, a certain debit to Nemesis. She would persuade him to enter the palace treading presumptuously upon royal purple tapestries, and with grim ambiguity she says:—
“And now to pleasure me, dear heart, down from thy car!