There is the sea (and who shall drain it dry?) producing stain of abundant purple, costly as silver and ever fresh, with which to dye our clothes; and of these our house, through the gods, has ample store; it knows no poverty. Vestments enough I would have devoted to be trampled underfoot had it been so ordered in the seat of oracles when I was devising a ransom for your life. For if the root still lives, leaves come again to the house and spread their over-reaching shade against the scorching dog star; so, now that you have come to hearth and home, you show that warmth has come in wintertime; and again, when Zeus makes wine from the bitter grape, That is, when the summer heat is ripening the grapes. then immediately there is coolness in the house when its rightful lord occupies his halls. As Agamemnon enters the palace O Zeus, Zeus, you who bring things to fulfilment, fulfill my prayers! May you see to that which you mean to fulfill! Exit 
 
 Chorus Why does this terror so persistently hover standing before my prophetic soul? Why does my song, unbidden and unfed, chant strains of augury? Why does assuring confidence not sit on my heart’s throne and spurn the terror like an uninterpretable dream? But Time has collected the sands of the shore upon the cables cast thereon when the shipborn army sped forth for Ilium . The sense of the Greek passage (of which no entirely satisfactory emendation has been offered) is that so much time has passed since the fleet, under Agamemnon’s command, was detained at Aulis by the wrath of Artemis, that Calchas’ prophecy of evil, if true, would have been fulfilled long ago. 
 
 Chorus 
 Of their coming home I learn with my own eyes and need no other witness. Yet still my soul within me, self-inspired, intones the lyreless dirge of the avenging spirit, and cannot wholly win its customary confidence of hope. Not for nothing is my bosom disquieted as my heart throbs against my justly fearful breast in eddying tides that warn of some event. But I pray that my expectation may fall out false and not come to fulfilment.
 Chorus Truly blooming health does not rest content within its due bounds; for disease ever presses close against it, its neighbor with a common wall. Abounding health, ignoring its limitations, is separated from disease only by a slight dividing line. The suppressed thought is that remedies, if applied at the right time, may save the body. 
 So human fortune, when holding onward in straight course strikes upon a hidden reef. And yet, if with a well-measured throw, caution heaves overboard a portion of the gathered wealth, the whole house, with woe overladen, does not founder nor engulf the hull. The house of Agamemnon, full of calamity, is likened to an overloaded ship, which will founder if some part of its freight is not jettisoned. By confusion of the symbol and the thing signified, δόμος is boldly said to sink its hull. 
 Truly the generous gift from Zeus, rich and derived from yearly furrows, makes an end of the plague of famine.
 Chorus 
 But a man’s blood, once it has first fallen by murder to earth in a dark tide—who by magic spell shall call it back? Even he Aesculapius, who was blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus for this offence. who possessed the skill to raise from the dead—did not Zeus make an end of him as warning? And unless one fate ordained of the gods restrains another fate from winning the advantage, my heart would outstrip my tongue and pour forth its fears The further expression of their forebodings is checked by the desperate hope that since divine forces sometimes clash, the evil destiny of Agamemnon may yet be averted by a superior fate, which they dimly apprehend will ordain his deliverance from the consequences of his shedding the blood of Iphigenia. ; but, as it is, it mutters only in the dark, distressed and hopeless ever to unravel anything in time when my soul’s aflame.
 Enter Clytaemestra Clytaemestra Get inside, you too, Cassandra I have retained the ordinary form of the name in Greek and English. ; since not unkindly has Zeus appointed you to share the holy water of a house where you may take your stand, with many another slave, at the altar of the god who guards its wealth. Get down from the car and do not be too proud; for even Alcmene’s son Heracles, because of his murder of Iphitus, was sold as a slave to Omphale, queen of Lydia . , men say, once endured to be sold and eat the bread of slavery. But if such fortune should of necessity fall to the lot of any, there is good cause for thankfulness in having masters of ancient wealth; for they who, beyond their hope, have reaped a rich harvest of possessions, are cruel to their slaves in every way, even exceeding due measure. You have from us such usage as custom warrants.
 Chorus 
 It is to you she has been speaking and clearly. Since you are in the toils of destiny, perhaps you will obey, if you are so inclined; but perhaps you will not.
 Clytaemestra Well, if her language is not strange and foreign, even as a swallow’s, I must speak within her comprehension and move her to comply.
 Chorus 
 Go with her. With things as they now stand, she gives you the best. Do as she bids and leave your seat in the car.
 Clytaemestra I have no time to waste with this woman here outside; for already the victims stand by the central hearth awaiting the sacrifice—a joy we never expected to be ours. As for you, if you will take any part, make no delay. But if, failing to understand, you do not catch my meaning, then, instead of speech, make a sign with your barbarian hand.
 Chorus 
 It is an interpreter and a plain one that the stranger seems to need. She bears herself like a wild creature newly captured.
 Clytaemestra 
 No, she is mad and listens to her wild mood, since she has come here from a newly captured city, and does not know how to tolerate the bit until she has foamed away her fretfulness in blood. No! I will waste no more words upon her to be insulted thus. Exit