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for thee, my father,^a and for thee, my mother,^b I weep to think what manner of things ye both shall suffer. Thou, my father, piteously fallen shalt lie beside the altar of mighty Zeus of the Court.^c Mother of the best of children, thee from human shape the gods shall turn into a hound^d maddened over thy children. Fair Polyxena,^e for thee lying low near to thy fatherland I shall weep but little: would that someone of the Argives had slain me too with thy lamented fate! For what profit have I in life any more, if life but keep me for a most pitiful death, and an alien soil shall cover me? Such things for me and such a doom for King Agamemnon himself doth my mistress^f weave, his reward for all his labours. But now take ye heed — in suffering shall ye learn the truth of my words — and put away, my friends, the cloud of infatuate folly. Let the body of the capacious horse be rent with hatchets or burnt with fire. And hiding crafty persons as it does, let it perish and be greatly regretted by the Danaans. And then feast ye and array you for the dance, setting up mixing-bowls in honour of dear liberty.ä^g

So she spake; but no one hearkened to her; for Apollo made her at once a good prophet and unbelieved.^h And her father spake and rebuked her:

NOTES

^a Priam.

^b Hecabe.

^c Priam was slain by Neoptolemus at the altar of Zeus Herceios (Verg. Aen. ii. 506 ff. See ll. 634 ff.).

^d Hecabe was turned into a hound (Eur. Hec. 1259ff.).

^e Polyxena, daughter of Priam and Hecabe, was loved by Achilles and after the capture of Troy was sacrificed by the Greeks at the tomb of Achilles (Epic. Gr. Frag. p. 50 Kinkel; Apollod. Epitom. v. 23). The name of Neoptolemus was given as the sacrificer by Stesichorus, Ibycus, and later by Euripides; cf. schol. Eur. Hec. 41.

^f i.e. Clytemnestra who treats Cassandra as a slave. Cf. Aesch. Ag. 1035 ff.

^g Hom. Il. vi. 526, ãif Zeus grant us to set up in our halls the mixing-bowl of liberty to the everlasting gods.ä

^h Cassandra, daughter of Priam, obtained from Apollo the gift of prophecy. But afterwards she refused to fulfil the promise by which she had obtained it. Apollo avenged himself by causing her prophecies not to be believed (Aesch. Ag. 1208 ff.).

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