Vivaldi, parts 777 - 780

777. When the lesson was over Vivaldi asked the two girls who had started the commotion to remain after class. Since what they had done was intended as a prank, and to them amounted to ridicule of Vivaldi's music and of opera in general, what they were expecting was some sort of punishment.  Vivaldi was not one to inflict punishment but they expected to be reported to the head mistress, who would then confine them to their dorm room for a week or two.

778. The girls stood at his desk, he looked at them with his baton in his hand, "Thank you girls, thank you for this glorious day, do the same tomorrow, and the day after", he said to them. The girls left the music room, suffering from a confusion of mixed emotions.

779. Vivaldi went immediately to the music library to find a piece of music that now stirred in his head, something he had heard years ago, a work by Monteverdi with a title  like "Agamemnon". He was all day in the music library but he could find no trace of it. He remembered  a solo by Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, in which she pleads for her life, and begs not to be sacrificed. This solo was followed by a chorus of young girls of the town reproaching the king for his plan to sacrifice his daughter to the gods.

780. After the chorus of young girls reproaching Agamemnon,  Agamemnon's wife in a solo, calls all the women of Argos to witness the crime Agamemnon is about to commit with the words, "We mothers of Argos, we recoil in horror, your plan we abhor, your war should not destroy the child we adore."