Sagamemnon
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
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Chorus
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But I will not be angry, since I pity her.
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Come, unhappy one, leave the car; yield to necessity and take upon you this novel yoke.
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Cassandra
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Woe, woe, woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!
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Chorus
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Wherefore your cry of woe in Loxias’ name?
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He is not the kind of god that has to do with mourners.
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Cassandra
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Woe, woe, woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!
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Chorus
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Once more with ill-omened words she cries to the god who should not be present at times of lamentation.
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Cassandra
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Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways,Cassandra sees an image of Apollo, the protector on journeys, close to the door leading to the street (ἀγυιά).my destroyer! For you have destroyed me—and utterly—this second time. Ἀπόλλων is here derived from Ἀπόλλυμι, destroy—nomen omen. The god had destroyed her the first time in making vain his gift of prophecy (1209 ff.); whereby she became the object of derision in Troy.
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Chorus
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I think that she is about to prophesy about her own miseries. The divine gift still abides even in the soul of one enslaved.
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Cassandra
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Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! Ah, what way is this that you have brought me! To what a house!
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Chorus
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To that of Atreus’ sons. If you do not perceive this, I’ll tell it to you. And you shall not say that it is untrue.
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Cassandra
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No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.
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Chorus
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The stranger seems keen-scented as a hound; she is on the trail where she will discover blood.
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Cassandra
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Here is the evidence in which I put my trust! Behold those babies bewailing their own butchery and their roasted flesh eaten by their father!
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Chorus
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Your fame to read the future had reached our ears; but we have no need of prophets here.
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Cassandra
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Alas, what can she be planningA play on the name Κλυταιμήστρα(μήδομαι).? What is this fresh woe she contrives here within, what monstrous, monstrous horror, beyond love’s enduring, beyond all remedy? And helpMenelaus (cp. l. 674) or Orestes.stands far away!
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Chorus
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These prophesyings pass my comprehension; but those I understood—the whole city rings with them.
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Cassandra
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Ah, damned woman, will you do this thing? Your husband, the partner of your bed, when you have cheered him with the bath, will you—how shall I tell the end?
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Soon it will be done. Now this hand, now that, she stretches forth!
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Chorus
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Not yet do I comprehend; for now, after riddles, I am bewildered by dark oracles.
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Cassandra
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Ah! Ah! What apparition is this?
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Is it a net of death? No, it is a snare that shares his bed, that shares the guilt of murder. Let the fatal pack, insatiable against the race, raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed!Literally fit for stoning.
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Chorus
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What Spirit of Vengeance is this that you bid
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raise its voice over this house? Your words do not cheer me. Back to my heart surge the drops of my pallid blood, even as when they drip from a mortal wound, ebbing away as life’s beams sink low; and death comes speedily.
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Cassandra
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Ah, ah, see there, see there! Keep the bull from his mate! She has caught him in the robe and gores him with the crafty device of her black horn! He falls in a vessel of water! It is of doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am telling you.
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Chorus
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I cannot boast that I am a keen judge of prophecies; but these, I think, spell some evil. But from prophecies what word of good ever comes to mortals? Through terms of evil their wordy arts
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bring men to know fear chanted in prophetic strains.
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Cassandra
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Alas, alas, the sorrow of my ill-starred doom! For it is my own affliction, crowning the cup, that I bewail. Ah, to what end did you bring me here, unhappy as I am? For nothing except to die—and not alone. What else?
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Chorus
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Frenzied in soul you are, by some god possessed, and you wail in wild strains your own fate, like that brown bird that never ceases making lament (ah me!), and in the misery of her heart moans Itys, Itys,
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throughout all her days abounding in sorrow, the nightingale.
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Cassandra
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Ah, fate of the clear-voiced nightingale! The gods clothed her in a winged form and gave to her a sweet life without tearsThe wailing (l. 1144) of the bird is unconscious (Schol.).. But for me waits destruction by the two-edged sword.
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Chorus
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From where come these vain pangs of prophecy that assail you? And why do you mold to melody these terrors with dismal cries blended with piercing strains? How do you know the bounds of the path of your
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ill-boding prophecy?
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Cassandra
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Ah, the marriage, the marriage of Paris, that destroyed his friends! Ah me, Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care;
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but now by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies.
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Chorus
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What words are these you utter, words all too plain? A new-born child hearing them could understand. I am smitten with a deadly pain, while,
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by reason of your cruel fortune, you cry aloud your pitiful moans that break my heart to hear.
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Cassandra
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O the sufferings, the sufferings of my city utterly destroyed! Alas, the sacrifices my father offered, the many pasturing cattle slain to save its towers!
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Yet they provided no remedy to save the city from suffering even as it has; and I, my soul on fire, must soon fall to the ground.
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Chorus
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Your present speech chimes with your former strain.
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Surely some malignant spirit, falling upon you with heavy swoop, moves you to chant your piteous woes fraught with death. But the end I am helpless to discover.
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Cassandra
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And now, no more shall my prophecy peer forth from behind a veil like a new-wedded bride; but
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it will rush upon me clear as a fresh wind blowing against the sun’s uprising so as to dash against its rays, like a wave, a woe far mightier than mine. No more by riddles will I instruct you. And bear me witness, as, running close behind,
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I scent the track of crimes done long ago. For from this roof never departs a choir chanting in unison, but singing no harmonious tune; for it tells not of good. And so, gorged on human blood, so as to be the more emboldened, a revel-rout of kindred Furies haunts the house,
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hard to be drive away. Lodged within its halls they chant their chant, the primal sin; and, each in turn, they spurn with loathing a brother’s bed, for they bitterly spurn the one who defiled it.Thyestes’ corruption of Aerope, wife of his brother Atreus.Have I missed the mark, or, like a true archer, do I strike my quarry?
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Or am I prophet of lies, a door-to-door babbler? Bear witness upon your oath that I know the deeds of sin, ancient in story, of this house.
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Chorus
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How could an oath, a pledge although given in honor, effect any cure? Yet I marvel at you that,
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though bred beyond the sea, you speak truth of a foreign city, even as if you had been present there.
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Cassandra
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The seer Apollo appointed me to this office.
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Chorus
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Can it be that he, a god, was smitten with desire?
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Cassandra
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Before now I was ashamed to speak of this.
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Chorus
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In prosperity all take on airs.
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Cassandra
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Oh, but he struggled to win me, breathing ardent love for me.
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Chorus
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Did you in due course come to the rite of marriage?
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Cassandra
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I consented to Loxias but broke my word.
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Were you already possessed by the art inspired of the god?
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Cassandra
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Already I prophesied to my countrymen all their disasters.
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Chorus
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How came it then that you were unharmed by Loxias’ wrath?
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Cassandra
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Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.
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Chorus
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And yet to us at least the prophecies you utter seem true enough.
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Cassandra
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Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony!
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Once more the dreadful throes of true prophecy whirl and distract me with their ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred,
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their hands full of the meat of their own flesh; they are clear to my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts (piteous burden!), which their father tasted. For this cause I tell you that a strengthless lion, wallowing in his bed, plots vengeance,
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a watchman waiting (ah me!) for my master’s coming home—yes, my master, for I must bear the yoke of slavery. The commander of the fleet and the overthrower of Ilium little knows what deeds shall be brought to evil accomplishment by the hateful hound, whose tongue licked his hand, who stretched forth her ears in gladness,
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like treacherous Ate. Such boldness has she, a woman to slay a man. What odious monster shall I fitly call her? An AmphisbaenaAmphisbaena, a fabulous snake moving both ways, backwards and forwards. Tennyson’s an amphisbaena, each end a sting, reproduces Pliny’s description.? Or a Scylla, tenanting the rocks, a pest to mariners,
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a raging, devil’s mother, breathing relentless war against her husband? And how the all-daring woman raised a shout of triumph, as when the battle turns, the while she feigned to joy at his safe return! And yet, it is all one, whether or not I am believed. What does it matter?
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What is to come, will come. And soon you, yourself present here, shall with great pity pronounce me all too true a prophetess.
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Chorus
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Thyestes’ banquet on his children’s flesh I understood, and I tremble. Terror possesses me as I hear the truth, nothing fashioned out of falsehood to resemble truth.
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But as for the rest I heard I am thrown off the track.
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Cassandra
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I say you shall look upon Agamemnon dead.
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Chorus
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To words propitious, miserable girl, lull your speech.
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Cassandra
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Over what I tell no healing god presides.
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Chorus
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No, if it is to be; but may it not be so!
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Cassandra
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You do but pray; their business is to slay.
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Chorus
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What man is he that contrived this wickedness?
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Cassandra
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Surely you must have missed the meaning of my prophecies.
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Chorus
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I do not understand the scheme of him who is to do the deed.
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Cassandra
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And yet all too well I understand the Greek language.
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Chorus
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So too do the Pythian oracles; yet they are hard to understand.
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Cassandra
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Oh, oh! What fire! It comes upon me! Woe, woe! Lycean Apollo! Ah me, ah me! This two-footed lioness, who mates with a wolf in the absence of the noble lion,
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will slay me, miserable as I am. Brewing as it were a drug, she vows that with her wrath she will mix requital for me too, while she whets her sword against her husband, to take murderous vengeance for bringing me here. Why then do I bear these mockeries of myself,
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this wand, these prophetic chaplets on my neck? Breaking her wand, she throws it and the other insignia of her prophetic office upon the ground, and tramples them underfoot You at least I will destroy before I die myself. To destruction with you! And fallen there, thus do I repay you. Enrich with doom some other in my place. Look, Apollo himself is stripping me
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of my prophetic garb—he that saw me mocked to bitter scorn, even in this bravery, by friends turned foes, with one accord, in vain—but, like some vagrant mountebank, called beggar, wretch, starveling, I bore it all.
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And now the prophet, having undone me, his prophetess, has brought me to this lethal pass. Instead of my father’s altar a block awaits me, where I am to be butchered in a hot and bloody sacrifice. Yet, we shall not die unavenged by the gods;
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for there shall come in turn another, our avenger, a scion of the race, to slay his mother and exact requital for his sire; an exile, a wanderer, a stranger from this land, he shall return to put the coping-stone upon these unspeakable iniquities of his house. For the gods have sworn a mighty oath
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that his slain father’s outstretched corpse shall bring him home. Why then thus raise my voice in pitiful lament? Since first I saw the city of Ilium fare what it has fared, while her captors, by the gods’ sentence, are coming to such an end,
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I will go in and meet my fate. I will dare to die. This door I greet as the gates of Death. And I pray that, dealt a mortal stroke, without a struggle, my life-blood ebbing away in easy death, I may close these eyes.
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Chorus
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O woman, pitiful exceedingly and exceeding wise, long has been your speech. But if, in truth, you have knowledge of your own death, how can you step with calm courage to the altar like an ox, driven by the god?
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Cassandra
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There is no escape; no, my friends, there is none any more.Auratus read χρόνου πλέων : more than that of time, save for time.
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Chorus
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Yet he that is last has the advantage in respect of time.
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Cassandra
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The day has come; flight would profit me but little.
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Chorus
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Well, be assured, you brave suffering with a courageous spirit.
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Cassandra
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None who is happy is commended thus.
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Chorus
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Yet surely to die nobly is a blessing for mortals.
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Cassandra
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Alas for you, my father and for your noble children! She starts back in horror
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Chorus
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What ails you? What terror turns you back?
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Cassandra
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Alas, alas!
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Chorus
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Why do you cry alas? Unless perhaps there is some horror in your soul.
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Cassandra
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This house stinks of blood-dripping slaughter.
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Chorus
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And what of that? It is just the savor of victims at the hearth.