Cho.Let torch-lights and libations close the rear.
Thus Zeus, all-seeing, and the Fates descend,
To bless these citizens to Pallas dear.
All.Your cry of jubilee ring out amain."
And so it is all over. Very dimly and scantily the scenes have been represented here: we have had but half the play, even in this meagre English; and we have lost altogether the beauty of colouring, the grandeur of the music, and, above all, the sympathy of assembled Athens. But even thus we can hardly wonder if the consent of posterity has given the palm for artistic greatness to the Trilogy of Orestes.
Let us look back for a moment at the scenes that have passed before us, from the watchman on his tower in the lonely darkness, to the blaze of torches that has just parted from our gaze. Let us see Agamemnon coming home in pride, Cassandra in the storm of her wild emotion, Clytemnestra defying the elders of her country; watch, again, Electra with her train of captives bringing their offerings to the dead hero's tomb; Orestes in his unswerving course of vengeance—not Hamlet-like, pondering and regretting, but going straight though sadly to his task; see him driven in madness forth; recall Apollo standing angry with his bow, the hideous Furies chanting their Binding Hymn, bright Pallas holding up the acquitting pebble, Orestes going forth freed and rejoicing;—
