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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 Excerpt: ...of the choral songs, and the general grandeur and gloom which pervade the whole piece, raise it above all that his successors were able to achieve. The central point of interest is the matchless scene between Cassandra and the chorus--a scene which drew even from the writer of the dry didascalue an expression of the universal admiration it produced. The play opens with a night view of the palace at Argos, from the roof of which a watchman, in a most picturesque prologue of a homely type, details the long weariness of his watch, and betrays in vague hints the secret sores that fester within the house. But his soliloquy is broken by a shout at the sudden flashing out of the long-expected beacon-light that heralded the fall of Troy, Then follows a long and difficult chorus which reviews all the course of the Trojan war, the omen of the eagles, the prophecies of Calchas, and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. The hymn marches on in its course, each member closing with the solemn refrain cu.Wo There is one passage which has excited much criticism concerning the chorus. When the voice of Agamemnon is heard within, crying that he is fatally wounded, there seems to be a regular deliberation of the chorus, each member offering his opinion, and summed up by the leader at the end of twentyfive lines. This delay seems very absurd, except we have recourse to the natural solution, that the various members of the chorus were made to speak simultaneously, so producing a confused sound of agitated voices, which is precisely what is most dramatic at such a moment. It is well known to actors now that this confused talking of a crowd is only to be produced by making each person on the stage say something definite at the same moment; and I believe Eschylus to have here used this expe...

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