Leader: Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,
Long was thy prophecy: but if aright
Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,
Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,
As fronts the knife some victim, heaven controlled?
Cassandra: Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.
Leader: Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.
Cassandra: The day is come--flight were small gain to me!
Leader: O brave endurance of a soul resolved!
Cassandra: That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.
Leader: All fame is happy, even famous death.
Cassandra: Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye! (She moves
to enter the house, then starts back.)
Leader: What fear is this that scares thee from the house?
Cassandra: Pah!
Leader: What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?
Cassandra: Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.
Leader: How? 'tis the smell of household offerings.
Cassandra: 'Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.
Leader: Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?
Studies
