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Next comes the story of Pelops’s line, of all that befell in Mycenae, and before Mycenae was; of Inachus and Io and Argus her guardian; of Atreus and Thyestes and Aérope, of the golden ram and the marriage of Pelopeia, the murdtr of Agamemnon and the punishment of Clytemnestra; and before their days, the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, the reception of the fugitives Tydeus and Polynices by their fatherin-law Adrastus; the oracle that foretold their fate, the unburied slain, the death of Antigone, and that of Menoeceus.
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Nor is any story more essential to the pantomime’s purpose than that of Hypsipyle and Archemorus in Nemea; and, in older days, the imprisonment of Danae, the begetting of Perseus, his enterprise against the Gorgons; and connected therewith is the Ethiopian narrative of Cassiopea, and Cepheus, and Andromeda, all of whom the belief of later generations has placed among the stars. To these must be added the ancient legend of Aegyptus and Danaus, and of that guilty weddingnight.
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Lacedaemon, too, supplies him with many similar subjects; Hyacinth, and his rival lovers, Zephyr and Apollo, and the quoit that slew him, the flower that sprang up from his blood, and the inscription of woe thereon; the raising of Tyndareus from the dead, and the consequent wrath of Zeus against Asclepius; again, the reception of Paris by Menelaus, and the rape of Helen, the sequel to his award of the golden apple.
