Clytaemestra Get inside, you too, Cassandra; since not unkindly has Zeus appointed you to share the holy water of a house where you may take your stand, with many another slave, at the altar of the god who guards its wealth. Get down from the car and do not be too proud; for even Alcmene’s son, men say, once endured to be sold and eat the bread of slavery. But if such fortune should of necessity fall to the lot of any, there is good cause for thankfulness in having masters of ancient wealth; for they who, beyond their hope, have reaped a rich harvest of possessions, are cruel to their slaves in every way, even exceeding due measure. You have from us such usage as custom warrants.
Chorus It is to you she has been speaking and clearly. Since you are in the toils of destiny, perhaps you will obey, if you are so inclined; but perhaps you will not.
Clytaemestra Well, if her language is not strange and foreign, even as a swallow’s, I must speak within her comprehension and move her to comply.
Chorus Go with her. With things as they now stand, she gives you the best. Do as she bids and leave your seat in the car.
Clytaemestra I have no time to waste with this woman here outside; for already the victims stand by the central hearth awaiting the sacrifice—a joy we never expected to be ours. As for you, if you will take any part, make no delay. But if, failing to understand, you do not catch my meaning, then, instead of speech, make a sign with your barbarian hand.
Chorus It is an interpreter and a plain one that the stranger seems to need. She bears herself like a wild creature newly captured.
Clytaemestra No, she is mad and listens to her wild mood, since she has come here from a newly captured city, and does not know how to tolerate the bit until she has foamed away her fretfulness in blood. No! I will waste no more words upon her to be insulted thus.
Chorus But I will not be angry, since I pity her. Come, unhappy one, leave the car; yield to necessity and take upon you this novel yoke.
Cassandra Woe, woe, woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!
Chorus Wherefore your cry of woe in Loxias’ name? He is not the kind of god that has to do with mourners.
Cassandra Woe, woe, woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!
Chorus Once more with ill-omened words she cries to the god who should not be present at times of lamentation.
Cassandra Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! For you have destroyed me—and utterly—this second time.
Chorus I think that she is about to prophesy about her own miseries. The divine gift still abides even in the soul of one enslaved.
Cassandra Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! Ah, what way is this that you have brought me! To what a house!
Chorus To that of Atreus’ sons. If you do not perceive this, I’ll tell it to you. And you shall not say that it is untrue.
Cassandra No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.
Chorus The stranger seems keen-scented as a hound; she is on the trail where she will discover blood.
Cassandra Here is the evidence in which I put my trust! Behold those babies bewailing their own butchery and their roasted flesh eaten by their father!
Chorus Your fame to read the future had reached our ears; but we have no need of prophets here.
Cassandra Alas, what can she be planning? What is this fresh woe she contrives here within, what monstrous, monstrous horror, beyond love’s enduring, beyond all remedy? And help stands far away!
Chorus These prophesyings pass my comprehension; but those I understood—the whole city rings with them.
Cassandra Ah, damned woman, will you do this thing? Your husband, the partner of your bed, when you have cheered him with the bath, will you—how shall I tell the end? Soon it will be done. Now this hand, now that, she stretches forth!
Chorus Not yet do I comprehend; for now, after riddles, I am bewildered by dark oracles.
Cassandra Ah! Ah! What apparition is this? Is it a net of death? No, it is a snare that shares his bed, that shares the guilt of murder. Let the fatal pack, insatiable against the race, raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed!
Chorus What Spirit of Vengeance is this that you bid raise its voice over this house? Your words do not cheer me. Back to my heart surge the drops of my pallid blood, even as when they drip from a mortal wound, ebbing away as life’s beams sink low; and death comes speedily.
Cassandra Ah, ah, see there, see there! Keep the bull from his mate! She has caught him in the robe and gores him with the crafty device of her black horn! He falls in a vessel of water! It is of doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am telling you.
Chorus I cannot boast that I am a keen judge of prophecies; but these, I think, spell some evil. But from prophecies what word of good ever comes to mortals? Through terms of evil their wordy arts bring men to know fear chanted in prophetic strains.
Cassandra Alas, alas, the sorrow of my ill-starred doom! For it is my own affliction, crowning the cup, that I bewail. Ah, to what end did you bring me here, unhappy as I am? For nothing except to die—and not alone. What else?
Chorus Frenzied in soul you are, by some god possessed, and you wail in wild strains your own fate, like that brown bird that never ceases making lament (ah me!), and in the misery of her heart moans Itys, Itys, throughout all her days abounding in sorrow, the nightingale.
Cassandra Ah, fate of the clear-voiced nightingale! The gods clothed her in a winged form and gave to her a sweet life without tears. But for me waits destruction by the two-edged sword.
Chorus From where come these vain pangs of prophecy that assail you? And why do you mold to melody these terrors with dismal cries blended with piercing strains? How do you know the bounds of the path of your ill-boding prophecy?
Cassandra Ah, the marriage, the marriage of Paris, that destroyed his friends! Ah me, Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care; but now by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies.
Chorus What words are these you utter, words all too plain? A new-born child hearing them could understand. I am smitten with a deadly pain, while, by reason of your cruel fortune, you cry aloud your pitiful moans that break my heart to hear.
Cassandra O the sufferings, the sufferings of my city utterly destroyed! Alas, the sacrifices my father offered, the many pasturing cattle slain to save its towers! Yet they provided no remedy to save the city from suffering even as it has; and I, my soul on fire, must soon fall to the ground.
Chorus Your present speech chimes with your former strain. Surely some malignant spirit, falling upon you with heavy swoop, moves you to chant your piteous woes fraught with death. But the end I am helpless to discover.
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