Agamemnon: He was ever shifty by nature, siding with the mob.
Menelaus: True, he is enslaved by the love of popularity, a fearful
evil.
Agamemnon: Bethink thee then, will he not arise among the Argives
and tell them the oracles that Calchas delivered, saying of me that
I undertook to offer Artemis a victim, and after all am proving false?
Then, when he has carried the army away with him, he will bid the
Argives slay us and sacrifice the maiden; and if I escape to Argos,
they will come and destroy the place, razing it to the ground, Cyclopean
walls and all. That is my trouble. Woe is me! to what straits Heaven
has brought me at this pass! Take one precaution for me, Menelaus,
as thou goest through the host, that Clytemnestra learn this not,
till I have taken my child and devoted her to death, that my affliction
may be attended with the fewest tears. (Turning to the Chorus) And
you, ye stranger dames, keep silence. (Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus.)
Studies
