LEADER.

O full of sorrows, full of wisdom great,
Woman, thy speech is a long anguish; yet,
Knowing thy doom, why walkst thou with clear eyes,
Like some god-blinded beast, to sacrifice?

CASSANDRA.

There is no escape, friends; only vain delay.

LEADER.

Is not the later still the sweeter day?

CASSANDRA.

The day is come.  Small profit now to fly.

LEADER.

Through all thy griefs, Woman, thy heart is high.

CASSANDRA.

Alas!  None that is happy hears that praise.

LEADER.

Are not the brave dead blest in after days?

CASSANDRA.

O Father!  O my brethren brave, I come!

  [She moves towards the House, but recoils shuddering.

LEADER.

What frights thee?  What is that thou startest from?

CASSANDRA.

Ah, faugh!  Faugh!

LEADER.

What turns thee in that blind
Horror?  Unless some loathing of the mind ...

CASSANDRA.

Death drifting from the doors, and blood like rain!

LEADER.

’Tis but the dumb beasts at the altar slain.

CASSANDRA.

And vapours from a charnel-house ...  See there!

LEADER.

’Tis Tyrian incense clouding in the air.

CASSANDRA (recovering herself again).

So be it!—­I will go, in yonder room
To weep mine own and Agamemnon’s doom. 
May death be all!  Strangers, I am no bird
That pipeth trembling at a thicket stirred
By the empty wind.  Bear witness on that day
When woman for this woman’s life shall pay,
And man for man ill-mated low shall lie: 
I ask this boon, as being about to die.

LEADER.

Alas, I pity thee thy mystic fate!

CASSANDRA.

One word, one dirge-song would I utter yet
O’er mine own corpse.  To this last shining Sun
I pray that, when the Avenger’s work is done,
His enemies may remember this thing too,
This little thing, the woman slave they slew!

O world of men, farewell!  A painted show
Is all thy glory; and when life is low
The touch of a wet sponge out-blotteth all. 
Oh, sadder this than any proud man’s fall! [She goes into the House.

CHORUS.

Great Fortune is an hungry thing,
  And filleth no heart anywhere,
Though men with fingers menacing
  Point at the great house, none will dare,
When Fortune knocks, to bar the door
Proclaiming:  “Come thou here no more!”
Lo, to this man the Gods have given
  Great Ilion in the dust to tread
And home return, emblazed of heaven;
If it is writ, he too shall go
Through blood for blood spilt long ago;
If he too, dying for the dead,
  Should crown the deaths of alien years,
  What mortal afar off, who hears,
Shall boast him Fortune’s Child, and led
  Above the eternal tide of tears? [A sudden Cry from within.