I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, doglike, I have kept, marking the conclave of all the night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise.

Agamemnon [458 B.C.], l. 1