Odysseus with a piteous gesture, and tears such as spirits weep[1]
gushed from his eyes. Instantly Odysseus recognised in that stricken
spirit his great commander Agamemnon, once the proud captain of a
thousand ships, now wandering, forlorn and feeble, with all his glory
faded.

[Footnote 1: "Tears such as _angels_ weep," Milton, "Paradise Lost,"
i. 619.]

"Royal son of Atreus," he said, in a voice broken with weeping, "is it
here that I find thee, great chieftain of the embattled Greeks? Say,
how comest thou hither, and what arm aimed the stroke which laid thee
low?" "Not in honour's field did I fall," answered Agamemnon, "nor yet
amid the waves. It was a traitor's hand that cut me off, the hand of
Ægisthus, and the guile of my accursed wife. He feasted me at his
board, and slaughtered me as one slaughters a stalled ox; and all my
company fell with me in that den of butchery. It was pitiful to see
all that brave band of veterans writhing in their death agony among
the tables loaded with good cheer, and goblets brimming with wine. But
that which gave me my sorest pang was the dying shriek of Cassandra,
daughter of Priam, who was struck down at my side by the dagger of
Clytæmnestra. Then the murderess turned away and left me with staring
eyes and mouth gaping in death. For naught is so vile, naught so
cruel, as a woman who hath hardened her heart to tread the path of
crime. Even so did she break her marriage vows, and afterwards slew
the husband of her youth. I thought to have found far other welcome
when I passed under the shadow of mine own roof-tree. But this
demon-wife imagined evil against me, and brought infamy on the very
name of woman."