“_Would, ye be wise, ye Cities, fly from war! Yet if war come, there is a crown in death For her that striveth well and perisheth Unstained: to die in evil were the stain! Therefore, O Mother, pity not thy slain, Nor Troy, nor me, the bride. Thy direst foe And mine by this my wooing is brought low._”[18]
At this point the herald is suddenly roused to reply. He turns upon her furiously for her ominous forebodings and bids her be silent. If he did not know her for a mad woman, he says, she should suffer for boding thus evil to the Greeks. He orders her roughly to follow him; but at his speech the frenzy rushes over Cassandra again. She turns upon Talthybius in magnificent anger and scorn. “How fierce a slave,” she cries; and then the prophetic gift burns in her as she foretells in language of awful beauty her own doom and that of Agamemnon.
“_Thou Greek King, Who deem’st thy fortune now so high a thing, Thou dust of the earth, a lowlier bed I see, In darkness, not in light, awaiting thee; And with thee, with thee ... there, where yawneth plain A rift of the hills, raging with winter rain, Dead ... and outcast ... and naked.... It is I Beside my bridegroom; and the wild beasts cry, And ravin on God’s chosen!..._
“_Mother, farewell, and weep not! O my sweet City, my earth-clad brethren, and thou great Sire that begat us; but a space, ye Dead, And I am with you; yea, with crownèd head I come, and shining from the fires that feed On these that slay us now, and all their seed._“[18]
Cassandra is led away to the Greek ships, no blessing to the toiling mariners. For even their own gods are wrath at the crime against her; and many a heart-breaking struggle is in store for them: many a noble ship will be lost, and many a hero’s life will pay the penalty, before their homes are reached. Perhaps to Agamemnon more than most, the Deities of the Elements were kind. But then they knew the fate awaiting him, and in ironic pleasure sped him to it. There is no need to recall the details of his arrival at Mycenæ, or of his welcome by Clytemnestra, almost distraught by conflicting hope and fear. Agamemnon was weary of his voyage; weary, too, of the long steep chariot-drive up from the sea. Yielding to his wife’s entreaty to walk on costly crimson to the palace, he turns for an instant to Cassandra’s chariot.