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| Paul Sérusier Breton Woman on the Seashore 1895 gouache on paper National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Tuomas von Boehm Still Life ca. 1960-65 oil on panel Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Canaletto The Molo and Palazzo Ducale, Venice ca. 1735 oil on canvas Huntington Library and Art Museum, San Marino, California |
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| Marie Laurencin Portrait of a Girl ca. 1920 oil on canvas Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden |
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| Stuart Davis Egg Beater no. 2 1928 oil on canvas Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Emil Kraus Still Life with Jugs and Lemons ca. 1925 oil on canvas Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Maurice Denis Les Captifs 1907 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims |
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| Sam Francis Green and Red 1966 lithograph Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Hanne Borchgrevink Variations (part 1) 2000 acrylic on canvas KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo |
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| Jan Beutener Hot Day 2007 oil on canvas Dordrechts Museum |
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| Morton Schamberg Figure 1913 oil on canvas Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Théo van Rysselberghe Orchard in July 1890 oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands |
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| Berthe Morisot Interior on Jersey 1886 oil on canvas Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels |
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| Paul Signac Les deux Cyprès, Opus 241 (Mistral) 1893 oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands |
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| Andrei Mylnikov Nude in Gurzuf, Crimea 1956 oil on canvas Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden |
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| Marie Dujardin-Beaumetz Les Repasseuses ca. 1885 oil on canvas Musée Petiet de Limoux |
Chorus: And what messenger could come here with such speed?
Clytemnestra: Hephaestus, sending a bright blaze on its way from Mount Ida; and then from that courier-fire beacon sent on beacon all the way here. Ida sent it to Hermes' crag on Lemnos, and from the island the great flambeau was received, thirdly, by the steep height of Zeus at Athos. Then the mighty traveling torch shot up aloft to arch over the sea, to the delight of the god, bringing its message-flame close to the sky, and landed on Peparethos, where again much pinewood was burned, which, like another sun, conveyed the message in light of golden brilliance to the watch-heights of Macistus. Nor did Macistus neglect its part in transmitting the message, either by dilatoriness or through being heedlessly vanquished by sleep: far over the the waters of the Euripus the beacon-light announced its coming to the watchmen of Messapium. They lit up in response and passed the message further on, kindling with fire a heap of old heather; and the torch, powerful and still not weakened, leaped over the plain of the Asopus like the shining moon, came to the crags of Cithaeron, and there set in motion its successor stage of the messenger-fire. The watch did not refuse the bidding of the light sent from afar, but kindled more than they had been ordered; and the light swooped over Gorgopis bay and came to the mountain where goats roam, where it stimulated the men not to be slow in fulfilling the ordinance about the fire. They kindled and sent on, in abundant strength, a great beard of flame, so that it would go on its blazing way right beyond the headland that looks over the Saronic narrows; then it swooped down and arrived at the steep heights of Arachnaeum, the watch-point nearest our city. And then it fell upon this house of the Atreidae, this light directly descended from the fire kindled on Ida. Such, I tell you, were my dispositions for this torch-relay, one after another of them fulfilled in succession: the first and the last runner were alike victorious!* Such, I tell you, is the evidence and the token that my husband has transmitted to me from Troy.
– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*This was trivially true in ordinary torch-races, where every member of the winning team had contributed to the victory and would share in its glory. Here, however, there has been no competition and some spectators (though not the chorus) may detect a sinister secondary meaning. The fire-message was first started on its journey by Agamemnon, and the last to receive it was Clytemnestra: the message announced Agamemnon's victory over Troy – and for Clytemnestra it was the signal to prepare for the victory we know she will gain over Agamemnon.