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!