P. 45, l. 671, Zeus of my sires, &c]—­In this invocation, short and comparatively unmoving, one can see perhaps an effect of Aeschylus’ play.  In the Libation-Bearers the invocation of Agamemnon comprises 200 lines of extraordinarily eloquent poetry.

P. 47 ff., ll. 699 ff.]—­The Golden Lamb.  The theft of the Golden Lamb is treated as a story of the First Sin, after which all the world was changed and became the poor place that it now is.  It was at least the First Sin in the blood-feud of this drama.

The story is not explicitly told.  Apparently the magic lamb was brought by Pan from the gods, and given to Atreus as a special grace and a sign that he was the true king.  His younger brother, Thyestes, helped by Atreus’ wife, stole it and claimed to be king himself.  So good was turned into evil, and love into hatred, and the stars shaken in their courses.

[It is rather curious that the Lamb should have such a special effect upon the heavens and the weather.  It is the same in Plato (Polit. 268 ff.), and more definitely so in the treatise De Astrologia, attributed to Lucian, which says that the Golden Lamb is the constellation Aries, “The Ram.”  Hugo Winckler (Weltanschauung des alten Orients, pp. 30, 31) suggests that the story is a piece of Babylonian astronomy misunderstood.  It seems that the vernal equinox, which is now moving from the Ram into the Fish, was in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. moving from the Bull into the Ram.  Now the Bull, Marduk, was the special god of Babylon, and the time when he yielded his place to the Ram was also, as a matter of fact, the time of the decline of Babylon.  The gradual advance of the Ram not only upset the calendar, and made all the seasons wrong; but seemed, since it coincided with the fall of the Great City, to upset the world in general!  Of course Euripides would know nothing of this.  He was apparently attracted to the Golden Lamb merely by the quaint beauty of the story.]

P. 50, l. 746, Thy brethren even now.]—­Castor and Polydeuces, who were received into the stars after their death.  See below, on l. 990.

P. 51, l. 757, That answer bids me die.]—­Why?  Because Orestes, if he won at all, would win by a surprise attack, and would send news instantly.  A prolonged conflict, without a message, would mean that Orestes and Pylades were being overpowered.  Of course she is wildly impatient.

P. 51, l. 765, Who an thou?  I mistrust thee.]—­Just as she mistrusted the Old Man’s signs.  See above, p. 89.

P. 52 ff., ll. 774 ff.]—­Messenger’s Speech.  This speech, though swift and vivid, is less moving and also less sympathetic than most of the Messengers’ Speeches.  Less moving, because the slaying of Aegisthus has little moral interest; it is merely a daring and dangerous exploit.  Less sympathetic, because even here, in the first and comparatively blameless step of the blood-vengeance, Euripides makes us feel the treacherous side of it.  A [Greek:  dolophonia], a “slaying by guile,” even at its best, remains rather an ugly thing.