Part 9

CHORUS Ay—were such doom at hand—which God forbid!

CASSANDRA Thou prayest idly—these move swift to slay.

CHORUS What man prepares a deed of such despite?

CASSANDRA Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.

CHORUS Deviser and device are dark to me.

CASSANDRA Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.

CHORUS Ay—but in thine, as in Apollo’s strains, Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.

CASSANDRA Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now— Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!

Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness Couched with the wolf—her noble mate afar— Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch, She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord With double death—his recompense for me! Ay, ’tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy, That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel! Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck, Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all— I stamp you into death, or e’er I die— Down, to destruction! Thus I stand revenged— Go, crown some other with a prophet’s woe. Look! it is he, it is Apollo’s self Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave. God! while I wore it yet, thou saw’st me mocked There at my home by each malicious mouth— To all and each, an undivided scorn. The name alike and fate of witch and cheat— Woe, poverty, and famine—all I bore; And at this last the god hath brought me here Into death’s toils, and what his love had made, His hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand Not now before the altar of my home, But me a slaughter-house and block of blood Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice. Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die, For by their will shall one requite my doom. He, to avenge his father’s blood outpoured, Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand. Ay, he shall come—tho’ far away he roam, A banished wanderer in a stranger’s land— To crown his kindred’s edifice of ill, Called home to vengeance by his father’s fall: Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.

And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth, Since first mine Ilion has found its fate And I beheld, and those who won the wall Pass to such issue as the gods ordain? I too will pass and like them dare to die!

Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail! Grant me one boon—a swift and mortal stroke, That all unwrung by pain, with ebbing blood Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.

CHORUS Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore, Long was thy prophecy: but if aright Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared, Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom, As fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled?

CASSANDRA Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.

CHORUS Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.

CASSANDRA The day is come—flight were small gain to me!

CHORUS O brave endurance of a soul resolved!

CASSANDRA That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.

CHORUS All fame is happy, even famous death.

CASSANDRA Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!

CHORUS What fear is this that scares thee from the house?

CASSANDRA Pah!

CHORUS What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?

CASSANDRA Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.

CHORUS How? ’tis the smell of household offerings.

CASSANDRA ’Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.

CHORUS Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?

CASSANDRA Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud The monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life. Ah friends! Bear to me witness, since I fall in death, That not as birds that shun the bush and scream I moan in idle terror. This attest When for my death’s revenge another dies, A woman for a woman, and a man Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse. Grant me this boon—the last before I die.

CHORUS Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.