“There are the details,” said Eteoneus. “The messenger says Agamemnon went into the house, as the trader reported, and after a while the people went away, not seeing more entertainment in prospect. Then Clytemnestra had them all called back, and she came out and made them a speech. She said she had enjoyed such admirable relations with her neighbours that there was no reason why she should not take them into her complete confidence. She had, she said, just killed her husband. They probably knew that Ægisthus and she had been living together, and considered themselves man and wife in the eyes of the gods, if the gods had noticed it. She had doubted that Agamemnon would return—rather hoped he wouldn’t, for he had murdered their daughter, and she was bound by every pious obligation, as they would readily appreciate, to slay the murderer of her child. She wished it understood that she had killed Agamemnon to avenge Iphigeneia, not in order to pursue her love for Ægisthus; that love, in fact, had come about of itself as an indirect consequence of what Agamemnon had done. She confessed that the duty to avenge her child had been complicated by the fact that he was her legal husband, and she had once loved him. She confessed also that he had entirely solved her scruples by the manner of his return; he had actually brought Cassandra home to be his concubine. She had therefore drawn him into a remote part of the house, had invited him to rest, and when his armour was removed, had killed him. In a burst of jealousy, which she mentioned with regret, she had also killed Cassandra. It was clear now, she said, that this second murder was unnecessary, but it’s hard to think of everything at the time. She wished them all to know, first, that she had done it herself, without aid from anybody; and secondly, that she was proud of it and had nothing to apologise for. She would now take Ægisthus as her lawful second husband; she had accepted no aid from him in killing Agamemnon, for after all, the feud had to do with her daughter and not with her love-affairs. Ægisthus was entirely innocent. If anybody was guilty, she was, but she was inclined to think the episode wiped out guilt instead of incurring it. The messenger considered it quite a speech,” said Eteoneus, “and at first it was well received, but the people began to notice, as they thought it over, that she really was shielding Ægisthus, and trying to lay the blame where no vengeance could strike. The messenger says that Orestes will have the people with him if he succeeds in killing Ægisthus, but if he fails, they’ll probably stand by Clytemnestra—she has the situation well in hand.”