Oresteia

happy release from my weary task! May the fire with its glad tidings flash through the gloom!
The signal-fire suddenly flashes out
All hail, thou blaze that showest forth in the night a light as it were of day, thou harbinger of many a choral dance in Argos in thanksgiving for this glad event!
What ho! What ho!
To Agamemnon’s Queen I thus cry aloud the signal to rise from her couch and in all haste to uplift in her palace halls a shout of jubilance in welcome of yon fire, if in very truth the city of Ilium is taken, as this beacon doth unmistakably announce. And I will make an overture with a dance upon my own account; for my lord’s lucky cast I shall count to mine own score, yon beacon having thrown me treble sixes.
Ah well, may the master of the house come home and may I clasp his welcome hand in mine! For the rest I’m dumb; a great ox stands upon my tongue A proverbial expression for enforced silence.—yet the house itself, could it but speak, might tell a tale full plain; since, for my part, of mine own choice I have words for such as know, and to those who know not I’ve lost my memory.

He descends by an inner stairway; attendants kindle fires at the altars placed in front of the palace. Enter the chorus of Argive Elders

CHORUS

This is now the tenth year since Priam’s mighty adversary, King Menelaüs, and with him King Agamemnon, the mighty twain of Atreus’ sons,