ness or wrongness of this view of morals, but we are compelled to notice, with respect as well as pity, that the Greeks, our teachers, once thought thus; and to consider how dismal was the state of a man who ever feared that some Fury, resistless and malignant, was urging him to a ruin which he could not but rush into. How little hope the individual could draw from his confidence that in the end all would come right, seeing that, although the race might be restored, the individual was to perish by the way!
But the sadder all this is the fitter it is for tragedy; and if we have in any degree realised it, we shall the better see the terrible grandeur of the powers which Æschylus shows us at work in Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.
But let us go into the theatre and see it all for ourselves. First comes the "Agamemnon"—the "Macbeth of antiquity," as Milman calls it; "as noble a tragedy," says Professor Wilson, "as ever went sweeping by across the floor of a stage."
The busy conversation of the crowd is hushed, the curtain is removed, and the play begins. A stately palace, built of vast stones, such as were
"Piled by the hands of giants
For godlike kings of old,"
forms the background of the scene; and upon a lonely tower on its outer wall a watchman lies, resting on his arm, and "looking forth into the night." For ten long years he has watched there, with his eyes towards Troy; for Agamemnon had promised, when he went
