And yet the dramatist, and his readers, find the wife rather than the husband the sympathetic character. It is partly the intolerable callousness and brutal pride of Agamemnon, who has sacrificed his daughter’s life to help on his political schemes, and now brings home with him from Troy the concubine whom he has compelled to share his bed. But there is also the feeling that Clytemnestra is really the better man of the pair: that she is naturally born to rule, and that her subjection to a man would be against the law of nature. Certainly in the play she takes the first place, and Cassandra, a part vocally the most important of any, comes next. The men, Agamemnon, the Watchman, the Herald, Ægisthus, and the helpless chorus of aged councillors, are merely foils to the ‘manlike’ queen. The contrast, indeed, between the resolute woman and the irresolute men in the closing scenes is almost comic, and the play ends with her triumph. In the sequel, _The Libation Bearers_, the main action is again in the hands of women, Electra and her friends, the maidens of the chorus. Orestes, it is true, does the actual killing; but there is this difference between brother and sister: Electra acts on her own initiative, and is a woman as strong-willed as Clytemnestra herself; Orestes acts only in obedience to the promptings of others. Electra feels no remorse; Orestes, as soon as he has killed his mother, is tormented by imaginary terrors. Among the characters of the second play, by far the most interesting is the old Nurse. She is obviously studied from the life, and is one of the most vivid figures of Greek Drama: her kindly temper and affection for her former charge are contrasted with the fierce bitterness of Electra, and she supplies the one touch of humour that lightens the mournful music of this play.
Last comes the _Eumenides_, which discusses with almost embarrassing frankness the physical problems of relationship. ‘Is the mother who conceives, or the father who begets the child, the nearer relative?’ And again, ‘Is not the murder of a husband, who is no relation by blood, less heinous than the murder of the mother who brought you into the world?’ These are some of the questions that are raised but not answered, for the final reconciliation satisfies the religious rather than the practical sense. The plot may be put briefly: