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Part V
Part V
Chorus
Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear
Hovers a vision drear
Before my boding heart? a strain,
Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,
Oracular of pain.
Not as of old upon my bosom`s throne
Sits Confidence, to spurn
Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.
Old, old and gray long since the time has grown,
Which saw the linked cables moor
The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion`s sandy shore;
And now mine eyes and not another`s see
Their safe return.
Yet none the less in me
The inner spirit sings a boding song,
Self-prompted, sings the Furies` strain -
And seeks, and seeks in vain,
To hope and to be strong!
Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,
Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast -
Yea, of some doom they tell -
Each pulse, a knell.
Lief, lief I were, that all
To unfulfilment`s hidden realm might fall.
Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,
Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied -
Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,
Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,
The gales that waft our bark on Fortune`s tide!
Swiftly we sail, the sooner all to drive
Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.
Then if the hand of caution warily
Sling forth into the sea
Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,
From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,
Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise
His household, who is timely wise.
How oft the famine-stricken field
Is saved by God`s large gift, the new year`s yield!
But blood of man once spilled,
Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the
Plain, -
Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.
So Zeus hath willed:
Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled
To bring man from the dead: the hand divine
Did smite himself with death - a warning and a sign.
Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,
Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,
Helpless to us-ward, and apart -
Swifter than speech my heart
Had poured its presage out!
Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,
`Tis hopeless to unfold
Truth, from fear`s tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim
Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.
Re-enter Clytemnestra
Get thee within, thou too, Cassandra, go!
For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants
To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,
Beside the altar of his guardianship,
Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still?
Step from the car; Alcmena`s son, `tis said,
Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.
Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befal,
`Tis a fair chance to serve within a home
Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,
To whom wealth`s harvest came beyond his hope,
Is as a lion to his slaves, in all
Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.
Pass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.
Chorus
Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,
But thou - within the toils of Fate thou art -
If such thy will, I urge thee to obey;
Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.
Clytemnestra
I wot - unless like swallows she doth use
Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea -
My words must speak persuasion to her soul.
Chorus
Obey: there is no gentler way than this.
Step from the car`s high seat and follow her.
Clytemnestra
Truce to this bootless waiting here without!
I will not stay: beside the central shrine
The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire -
Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.
Thou - if thou reckest aught of my command,
`Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut
From these my words, let thy barbarian hand
Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.
Chorus
No native is she, thus to read thy words
Unaided: like some wild thing of the wood,
New-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.
Clytemnestra
`Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,
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,
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!
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 off 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
Wherewith the brown melodious bird
Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,
Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little lifetime`s day!
Cassandra
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
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
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
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
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
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 piteous
wail.
Cassandra
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.
Chorus
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.
Chorus
God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?
Cassandra
Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.
Chorus
Such finer sense suits not with slavery.
Cassandra
He strove to win me, panting for my love.
Chorus
Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?
Cassandra
Nay - for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.
Chorus
Wert thou already dowered with prescience?
Cassandra
Yea - prophetess to Troy of all her doom.
Chorus
How left thee then Apollo`s wrath unscathed?
Cassandra
I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.
Chorus
Not so - to us at least thy words seem sooth.
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