Cassandra: Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud
The monarch's fate and mine-- enough of life.
Ah friends!
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream
I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death's revenge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.
Grant me this boon--the last before I die.
Leader: Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.
Cassandra: Once more one utterance, but not of wail,
Though for my death--and then I speak no more.
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred's slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.
Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away--
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.
Studies
