CHOR.  Thou hast spoken generous words, and becoming Tantalus the son of
Jove.  Thou disgracest not thine ancestors.

AG.  I commend thee, Menelaus, in that, contrary to my expectation, you have subjoined these words, rightly, and worthily of thee.

MEN.  A certain disturbance[36] between brothers arises on account of love, and avarice in their houses.  I abhor such a relationship, mutually sore.

AG.  But [consider,] for we are come into circumstances that render it necessary to accomplish the bloody slaughter of my daughter.

MEN.  How?  Who will compel thee to slay thy child?

AG.  The whole assembly of the armament of the Greeks.

MEN.  Not so, if at least thou dismiss it back to Argos.

AG.  In this matter I might escape discovery, but in that I can not.[37]

MEN.  What?  One should not too much fear the multitude.

AG.  Calchas will proclaim his prophecy to the army of the Greeks.

MEN.  Not if he die first—­and this is easy.

AG.  The whole race of seers is an ambitious ill.

MEN.  And in naught good or profitable, when at hand.[38]

AG.  But dost thou not fear that which occurs to me?

MEN.  How can I understand the word you say not?

AG.  The son of Sisyphus knows all these matters.

MEN.  It can not be that Orestes can pain thee and me.

AG.  He is ever changeable, and with the multitude.

MEN.  He is indeed possessed with the passion for popularity, a dreadful evil.

AG.  Do you not then think that he, standing in the midst of the Greeks, will tell the oracles which Calchas pronounced, and of me, that I promised to offer a sacrifice to Diana, and then break my word.  With which [words] having carried away the army, he will bid the Greeks slay thee and me, and sacrifice the damsel.  And if I flee to Argos, they will come and ravage and raze the land, Cyclopean walls and all.  Such are my troubles.  O unhappy me!  How, by the Gods, am I at a loss in these present matters!  Take care of one thing for me, Menelaus, going through the army, that Clytaemnestra may not learn these matters, before I take and offer my daughter to Hades, that I may fare ill with as few tears as possible.  But do ye, O stranger women, preserve silence.

CHORUS.  Blest are they who share the nuptial bed of the Goddess Aphrodite,[39] when she is moderate, and with modesty, obtaining a calm from the maddening stings, when Love with his golden locks stretches his twin bow of graces, the one for a prosperous fate, the other for the upturning of life.  I deprecate this [bow,] O fairest Venus, from our beds, but may mine be a moderate grace, and holy endearments, and may I share Aphrodite, but reject her when excessive.  But the natures of mortals are different, and their manners are different,[40] but that which is clearly good is ever plain.  And the education which trains[41]