Stasimon 4
KASSANDRA.
Otototoi, Gods, Earth, —
CHOROS.
Why didst thou ototoi concerning Loxias?
Since he is none such as to suit a mourner.
1075
KASSANDRA.
Otototoi, Gods, Earth, —
CHOROS.
Ill-boding here again the god invokes she
— Nowise empowered in woes to stand by helpful.
KASSANDRA.
Apollon, Apollon,
1080
Guard of the ways, my destroyer!
For thou hast quite, this second time, destroyed me.
CHOROS.
To prophesy she seems of her own evils:
Remains the god-gift to the slave-soul present.
KASSANDRA.
Apollon, Apollon,
1085
Guard of the ways, my destroyer!
Ha, whither hast thou led me? to what roof now?
CHOROS.
To the Atreidai’s roof: if this thou know’st not,
I tell it thee, nor this wilt thou call falsehood.
KASSANDRA.
How! How!
1090
God-hated, then! Of many a crime it knew —
1090
Self-slaying evils, halters too:
Man’s-shambles, blood-besprinkler of the ground!
CHOROS.
She seems to be good-nosed, the stranger: dog-like,
She snuffs indeed the victims she will find there.
KASSANDRA.
How! How!
1095
By the witnesses here I am certain now!
1095
These children bewailing their slaughters — flesh dressed in the fire
And devoured by their sire!
CHOROS.
Ay, we have heard of thy soothsaying glory,
Doubtless: but prophets none are we in scent of!
KASSANDRA.
Ah, gods, what ever does she meditate?
1100
What this new anguish great?
1100
Great in the house here she meditates ill
Such as friends cannot bear, cannot cure it: and still
Off stands all Resistance
CHOROS.
Of these I witless am — these prophesyings.
1105
But those I knew: for the whole city bruits them.
KASSANDRA.
Ah, unhappy one, this thou consummatest?
Thy husband, thy bed’s common guest,
In the bath having brightened. .. How shall I declare
Consummation? It soon will be there:
For hand after hand she outstretches,
1110
CHOROS.
Nor yet I’ve gone with thee! for — after riddles —
Now, in blind oracles, I feel resourceless.
KASSANDRA.
Eh, eh, papai, papai,
Some net of Haides undoubtedly
1115
In his bed, who takes part in the murder there!
On the Race, raise a shout
CHOROS.
What this Erinus which i’ the house thou callest
To raise her cry? Not me thy word enlightens!
1120
A drop of the crocus-dye:
On earth by the spear that lie,
With life’s descending sun.
Swift is the curse begun!
KASSANDRA.
How! How!
1125
Keep the bull from the cow!
1125
In the vesture she catching him, strikes him now
With the black-horned trick,
And he falls in the watery vase!
Of the craft-killing cauldron I tell thee the case!
CHOROS.
I would not boast to be a topping critic
1130
Of oracles: but to some sort of evil
I liken these. From oracles, what good speech
To mortals, beside, is sent?
It comes of their evils: these arts word-abounding that sing the event
Bring the fear’t is their office to teach.
1135
KASSANDRA.
Ah me, ah me —
Of me unhappy, evil-destined fortunes!
For I bewail my proper woe
As, mine with his, all into one I throw.
Why hast thou hither me unhappy brought?
— Unless that I should die with him — for nought!
CHOROS.
Thou art some mind-mazed creature, god-possessed:
1140
And all about thyself dost wail
Like some brown nightingale
Insatiable of noise, who — well-away! —
Keeps moaning Itus, Itus, and his life
With evils, flourishing on each side, rife.
1145
The fate o’ the nightingale, the clear resounder!
For a body wing-borne have the gods cast round her,
And sweet existence, from misfortunes free:
But for myself remains a sundering
With spear, the two-edged thing!
CHOROS.
Whence hast thou this on-rushing god-involving pain
1150
For, things that terrify,
With changing unintelligible cry
Thou strikest up in tune, yet all the while
After that Orthian style!
Whence hast thou limits to the oracular road,
KASSANDRA.
Ah me, the nuptials, the nuptials of Paris, the deadly to friends!
Ah me, of Skamandros the draught
Paternal! There once, to these ends,
On thy banks was I brought,
The unhappy! And now, by Kokutos and Acheron’s shore
1160
I shall soon be, it seems, these my oracles singing once more!
CHOROS.
Why this word, plain too much,
Hast thou uttered? A babe might learn of such!
I am struck with a bloody bite — here under —
At the fate woe-wreaking
1165
Of thee shrill shrieking:
To me who hear — a wonder!
KASSANDRA.
Ah me, the toils — the toils of the city
The wholly destroyed: ah, pity,
Of the sacrificings my father made
Much slaughter of grass-fed flocks — that afforded no cure
That the city should not, as it does now, the burthen endure!
1170
But I, with the soul on fire,
Soon to the earth shall cast me and expire.
CHOROS.
To things, on the former consequent,
Again hast thou given vent:
And ’t is some evil-meaning fiend doth move thee,
1175
Heavily falling from above thee,
1175
To melodize thy sorrows — else, in singing,
Calamitous, death-bringing!
I am without resource to apprehend