LEADER But with me pity sits in anger's...

LEADER But with me pity sits in anger's place.

Poor maiden, come thou from the car; no way

There is but this-take up thy servitude.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou

Apollo, Apollo!

LEADER Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,

Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou

Apollo, Apollo!

LEADER Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,

Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Apollo, Apollo!

God of all ways, but only Death's to me,

Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,

Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!

LEADER She grows presageful of her woes to come,

Slave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Apollo, Apollo!

God of all ways, but only Death's to me,

O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!

What way hast led me, to what evil home?

LEADER Know'st thou it not? The home of Atreus' race:

Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,

Ye visioned woes within-

The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin-

The strangling noose, and, spattered o'er

With human blood, the reeking floor!

LEADER How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,

Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies!

CASSANDRA (chanting) Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,

Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?

Look! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,

Their sodden limbs on which their father fed!

LEADER Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,-

But for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue-

CASSANDRA (chanting) God! 'tis another crime-

Worse than the storied woe of olden time,

Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here-

A shaming death, for those that should be dear

Alas! and far away, in foreign land,

He that should help doth stand!

LEADER I knew th' old tales, the city rings withal-

But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.

CASSANDRA (chanting) O wretch, O purpose fell!

Thou for thy wedded lord

The cleansing wave hast poured-

A treacherous welcome

How the sequel tell?

Too soon 'twill come, too soon, for now, even now,

She smites him, blow on blow!

LEADER Riddles beyond my rede--I peer in vain

Thro' the dim films that screen the prophecy

CASSANDRA (chanting) God! a new sight! a net, a snare of hell,

Set by her hand--herself a snare more fell

A wedded wife, she slays her lord,

Helped by another hand!

Ye powers, whose hate

Of Atreus' home no blood can satiate,

Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!

CHORUS (chanting) Why biddest thou some hend, I know not whom,

Shriek o'er the house? Thine is no cheering word.

Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel

My wanning life-blood run-- The blood that round the wounding steel

Ebbs slow, as sinks life's parting sun--

Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Away, away--keep him away--

The monarch of the herd, the pasture's pride,

Far from his mate! In treach'rous wrath,

Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe

She gores his fenceless side! Hark ! in the brimming bath,

The heavy plash--the dying cry--

Hark--in the laver--hark, he falls by treachery!

CHORUS (chanting) I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,

Yet something warns me that they tell of ill,

O dark prophetic speech, Ill tidings dost thou teach

Ever, to mortals here below! Ever some tale of awe and woe

Thro' all thy windings manifold Do we unriddle and unfold!

CASSANDRA (chanting) Ah well-a-day! the cup of agony,

Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me

Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here--

Was't but to die with thee whose doom is near?

CHORUS (chanting) Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,

And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,

As piteous as the ceaseless tale

Wherewith the brown melodious bird

Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,

Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little life-time's day!

CASSANDRA (chanting) Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale!

Some solace for thy woes did Heaven afford,

Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail--

But for my death is edged the double-biting sword!

CHORUS (chanting) What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,

Sent on thee from on high?

Thou chantest terror's frantic strain,

Yet in shrill measured melody.

How thus unerring canst thou sweep along

The prophet's path of boding song?

CASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy

Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy!

And woe for thee, Scamander's flood!

Beside thy banks, O river fair,

I grew in tender nursing care

From childhood unto maidenhood!

Now not by thine, but by Cocytus' stream

And Acheron's banks shall ring my boding scream.

CHORUS (chanting) Too plain is all, too plain!

A child might read aright thy fateful strain.

Deep in my heart their piercing fang

Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard

That piteous, low, tender word,

Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.

CASSANDRA (chanting) Woe for my city, woe for Ilion's fall!

Father, how oft with sanguine stain

Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain

That heaven might guard our wall!

But all was shed in vain.

Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,

And I--ah burning heart!--shall soon lie low as well.

CHORUS (chanting) Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!

Alas, what power of ill

Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell

In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?

Some woe--I know not what--must close thy pious wail.

CASSANDRA (more calmly) List! for no more the presage of my soul,

Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;

But as the morning wind blows clear the east,

More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,

And as against the low bright line of dawn

Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,

So in the clearing skies of prescience

Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,

And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.

Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side--

I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.

Within this house a choir abidingly

Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;

Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,

Man's blood for wine, and revel in the halls,

Departing never, Furies of the home.

They sit within, they chant the primal curse,

Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,

The brother's couch, the love incestuous

That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.

Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,

Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?

They called me once, The prophetess of lies,

The wandering hag, the pest of every door--

Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth

The house's curse, the storied infamy.

LEADER Yet how should oath--how loyally soe'er

I swear it--aught avail thee? In good sooth,

My wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed

That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,

Dost as a native know and tell aright

Tales of a city of an alien tongue.

CASSANDRA That is my power--a boon Apollo gave.

LEADER God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?

CASSANDRA Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.

LEADER Such finer sense suits not with slavery.

CASSANDRA He strove to win me, panting for my love.

LEADER Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?

CASSANDRA Nay--for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.

LEADER Wert thou already dowered with prescience?

CASSANDRA Yea--prophetess to Troy of all her doom.

LEADER How left thee then Apollo's wrath unscathed?

CASSANDRA I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.

LEADER Not so--to us at least thy words seem sooth.

CASSANDRA Woe for me, woe! Again the agony--

Dread pain that sees the future all too well

With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.

Behold ye--yonder on the palace roof

The spectre-children sitting--look, such things

As dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,

Horrible shadows, that a kinsman's hand

Hath marked with murder, and their arms are full--

A rueful burden--see, they hold them up,

The entrails upon which their father fed!

For this, for this, I say there plots revenge

A coward lion, couching in the lair--

Guarding the gate against my master's foot--

My master--mine--I bear the slave's yoke now,

And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,

Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue

Of this thing false and dog-like--how her speech

Glozes and sleeks her purpose, till she win

By ill fate's favour the desired chance,

Moving like Ate to a secret end.

O aweless soul! the woman slays her lord--

Woman? what loathsome monster of the earth

Were fit comparison? The double snake--

Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman s bane,

Girt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,

Raving a truceless curse upon her kin?

Hark even now she cries exultingly

The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned--

How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!

Nay then, believe me not: what skills belief

Or disbelief ? Fate works its will--and thou

Wilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.

LEADER Ah--'tis Thyestes' feast on kindred flesh--

I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,

Hearing no shadow'd hint of th' o'er-true tale,

But its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,

Far from the track I roam, and know no more.

CASSANDRA 'Tis Agamemnon's doom thou shalt behold.

LEADER Peace hapless woman, to thy boding words!

CASSANDRA Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.

LEADER Ay-- were such a doom at hand-- which God forbid!

CASSANDRA Thou prayest idly--these move swift to slay.

LEADER What man prepares a deed of such despite?

CASSANDRA Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.

LEADER Deviser and device are dark to me.

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

LEADER Ay--but in thine, as in Apollo's strains,

Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Trans. E.D.A. Morshead, http://classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/agamemnon.pl.txt