Successive moments of increasing anticipation. Almost half of the work is completed when Agamemnon arrives with the captive princess Cassandra, and Clytemnestra forces him to commit the sin of pride by walking on a crimson carpet to the entrance of the palace.

Cassandra, with a frenzied song, tells the unfaithful chorus that she has seen in a vision the family's condemnation from beginning to end, culminating in the impending crimes - the death of the king and her own.

She enters, and only now does the scream of death, which they had been waiting for, echo from the palace. No messenger emerges to recount the story. Aeschylus has warned us in advance.