SECOND ELDER.

How?  Will she prophesy about her own
Sorrows?  That power abides when all is gone!

CASSANDRA.

Apollo, Apollo!  Light of all that is! 
  Mine enemy! 
Where hast thou led me? ...  Ha!  What house is this?

LEADER.

The Atreidae’s castle.  If thou knowest not, I
Am here to help thee, and help faithfully.

CASSANDRA (whispering).

Nay, nay.  This is the house that God hateth. 
There be many things that know its secret; sore
And evil things; murders and strangling death. 
’Tis here they slaughter men...A splashing floor.

SECOND ELDER.

Keen-sensed the strange maid seemeth, like a hound
For blood.—­And what she seeks can sure be found!

CASSANDRA.

The witnesses ...  I follow where they lead. 
The crying ... of little children ... near the gate: 
Crying for wounds that bleed: 
And the smell of the baked meats their father ate.

SECOND ELDER (recognizing her vision, and repelled).

Word of thy mystic power had reached our ear
Long since.  Howbeit we need no prophets here.

CASSANDRA.

Ah, ah!  What would they?  A new dreadful thing. 
A great great sin plots in the house this day;
Too strong for the faithful, beyond medicining ... 
And help stands far away.

LEADER.

This warning I can read not, though I knew
That other tale.  It rings the city through.

CASSANDRA.

O Woman, thou!  The lord who lay with thee! 
  Wilt lave with water, and then ...  How speak the end? 
It comes so quick.  A hand ... another hand ... 
  That reach, reach gropingly....

LEADER.

I see not yet.  These riddles, pierced with blind
Gleams of foreboding, but bemuse my mind.

CASSANDRA.

Ah, ah!  What is it?  There; it is coming clear. 
  A net ... some net of Hell. 
Nay, she that lies with him ... is she the snare? 
  And half of his blood upon it.  It holds well.... 
O Crowd of ravening Voices, be glad, yea, shout
And cry for the stoning, cry for the casting out!

SECOND ELDER.

What Fury Voices call’st thou to be hot
Against this castle?  Such words like me not.

  And deep within my breast I felt that sick
    And saffron drop, which creepeth to the heart
    To die as the last rays of life depart. 
      Misfortune comes so quick.

CASSANDRA.

Ah, look!  Look!  Keep his mate from the Wild Bull! 
  A tangle of raiment, see;
A black horn, and a blow, and he falleth, full
  In the marble amid the water.  I counsel ye. 
  I speak plain ...  Blood in the bath and treachery!

LEADER.

No great interpreter of oracles
Am I; but this, I think, some mischief spells.

  What spring of good hath seercraft ever made
    Up from the dark to flow? 
  ’Tis but a weaving of words, a craft of woe,
    To make mankind afraid.