Works of Aeschylus - Aeschylus [13]
Since she beheld her city sink in fire,
And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until
In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.
See ye to her; unqueenly 'tis for me,
Unheeded thus to cast away my words.
Exit Clytemnestra.
Chorus:
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:
Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
Apollo, Apollo!
Chorus:
Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,
Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.
Cassandra:
Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
Apollo, Apollo!
Chorus:
Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,
Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.
Cassandra:
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!
Chorus:
She grows presageful of her woes to come,
Slave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.
Cassandra:
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?
Chorus:
Know'st thou it not? The home of Atreus' race:
Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.
Cassandra:
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!
Chorus:
How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,
Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies!
Cassandra:
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!
Chorus:
Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,--
But for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue.
Cassandra:
God! 'tis another crime--
Worse than the storied woe of olden time,
Curelessabhorred, 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!
Chorus:
I knew th' old tales, the city rings withal--
But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.
Cassandra:
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!
Chorus:
Riddles beyond my rede--I peer in vain
Thro' the dim films that screen the prophecy.
Cassandra:
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:
Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,
Shriek o'er the house? Thine is no cheering word.
Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel
My waning 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:
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:
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:
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:
Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,
And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,
As piteous as the ceaseless tale