With these words she covers up the real desires of her own false heart, while at the same time voicing the principle on which doom was to overtake the Greeks.
The chorus receives Clytemnestra's news with joy and prepares to sing praises to the gods, as the queen with her train leaves the stage.
First episode.—Clytemnestra, conscious of guilt, and fearing that her returning husband will severely punish her on account of her adulterous life with Aegisthus, resolves to add crime to crime and murder Agamemnon as soon as he comes back to his home. She is further impelled to this action by his conduct in the matter of her daughter, Iphigenia, and by his own unfaithfulness to her during his long absence. Throughout this scene the nurse vainly tries to dissuade her.
Clytemnestra is either influenced to recede from her purpose by the nurse, or else pretends to be resolved to draw back in order to test Aegisthus who now enters. In the end, the two conspirators withdraw to plan their intended crime.
First choral interlude.—The chorus sings in praise of Zeus, who has signally disproved the skeptic's claim that
The gods deign not to care for mortal men
By whom the grace of things inviolable
Is trampled under foot.
The shameful guilt of Paris is described, the woe of the wronged Menelaüs, and the response of all Greece to his cry for vengeance. But, after all, the chorus is in doubt as to whether the good news can be true—when a herald enters with fresh news.
First choral interlude.—The chorus sings in praise of Apollo for the victory over Troy. To this are added the praises of Juno, Minerva, and Jove. In the end the chorus hails the approach of the herald Eurybates.