No More Learning

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.

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 are 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
Glozes 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.