To Hades underground, the corpses’ saviour god.”
A lyrical dialogue between the Queen and the chorus follows: exultation and execration; justification and lamentation. Clytemnestra, to the indignant question of the chorus, “Who is to bury him?” replies that he is her dead and adroitly takes refuge once and again in the necessity of avenging Iphigeneia. The climax of bitterness is reached when she flings forth the taunting suggestion that the murdered child will most appropriately welcome her dear father as he disembarks at Charon’s ferry. The chorus, bemoaning him “laid low in the bath, on his pallet bedding of silver,” asks again:—
“Praises and requiem who shall be singing,
Loyal heart to the labour bringing,
And shower the godlike man with tears?”
And Clytemnestra replies:—
“It becomes not you for this duty to care.
At my hands he fell down and he lies—down there!
And ’tis I that shall bury him—down below!
And ’tis not with laments of his house he shall go,