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Part VI
Part VI
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 as 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
Glazes 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.
Chorus
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.
Chorus
Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!
Cassandra
Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.
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 ille
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!
[Turns and looks upon the palace door.
Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!
Grant me one boon - a swift and mortal stroke,
That all unwrong 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!
[She moves to enter the house, then starts back.
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.
Cassandra
Once more one utterance, but not of wail,
Though for my death - and then I speak no more.
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred`s slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.
Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away -
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.
[Exit into the palace.
Chorus
Too true it is! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate,
And none, before the palace high
And stately of prosperity,
Cries to us with a voice of fear,
Away! `tis ill to enter here!
Lo! this our lord hath trodden down,
By grace of heaven, old Priam`s town,
And praised as god he stands once more
On Argos` shore!
Yet now - if blood shed long ago
Cries out that other blood shall flow -
His life-blood, his, to pay again
The stern requital of the slain -
Peace to that braggart`s vaunting vain,
Who, having heard the chieftain`s tale,
Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!
[A loud cry from within.
Voice of Agamemnon
O I am sped - a deep, a mortal blow.
Chorus
Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?
Voice of Agamemnon
O! O! again, another, another blow!
Chorus
The bloody act is over - I have heard the monarch`s cry -
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed
to die.
One of the Chorus
`Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,
"Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!"
Another
Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,
And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.
Another
Such will is mine, and what thou say`st I say:
Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.
Another
Ay, for `tis plain, this prelude of their song
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.
Another
Behold, we tarry - but thy name, Delay,
They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.
Another
I know not what `twere well to counsel now -
Who wills to act, `tis his to counsel how.
Another
Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,
I have no words to bring his life again.
Another
What? e`en for life`s sake, bow us to obey
These house-defilers and their tyrant sway?
Another
Unmanly doom! `twere better far to die -
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.
Another
Think well - must cry or sign of woe or pain
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain?
Another
Such talk befits us when the deed we see -
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.
Leader of the Chorus
I read one will from many a diverse word,
To know aright, how stands it with our lord!
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