Between the purple and my dainty feet.

For fear, for fear indeed, some Jealous eye
From heaven above, or earth below, should strike
The Man who walks the earth Immortal-like.
So much for that. For this same royal maid,
Cassandra, daughter of King Priamus,
Whom, as the flower of all the spoil of Troy,
The host of Hellas dedicates to me;

Entreat her gently; knowing well that none
But submit hardly to a foreign yoke;

And those of Royal blood most hardly brook.
That if I sin thus trampling underfoot

A woof in which the Heavens themselves are dyed,
The jealous God may less resent his crime,

Who mingles human mercy with his pride.
Clytemnestra-

The Sea there is, and shall the sea be dried?
Fount inexhaustibler of purple grain

Than all the wardrobes of the world could drain;
And Earth there is, whose dusky closets hide
The precious metal wherewith not in vain
The Gods themselves this Royal house provide;
For what occasion worthier, or more meet,
Than now to carpet the victorious feet

Of Him who, thus far having done their will,
Shall now their last About-to-be fulfill?

[AGAMEMNON descends from his chariot, and goes with CLYTEMNESTRA into the house, CASSANDRA remaining.

Chorus.

About the nations runs a saw,

That Over-good ill fortune breeds;
And true that, by the mortal law,
Fortune her spoilt children feeds
To surfeit, such as sows the seeds
Of Insolence, that, as it grows,
The flower of Self-repentance blows.
And true that Virtue often leaves

The marble walls and roofs of kings,
And underneath the poor man's eaves
On smoky rafter folds her wings.

Thus the famous city, flown
With insolence, and overgrown,
Is humbled: all her splendor blown

To smoke her glory laid in dust;
Who shall say by doom unjust?
But should He to whom the wrong
Was done, and Zeus himself made strong
To do the vengeance He decreed-
At last returning with the meed

He wrought for should the jealous Eye
That blights full-blown prosperity
Pursue him- then indeed, indeed,
Man should hoot and scare aloof
Good fortune lighting on the roof;
Yea, even Virtue's self forsake
If Glory followed in the wake;
Seeing bravest, best, and wisest
But the playthings of a day,
Which a shadow can trip over,

And a breath can puff away.

Clytemnestra [reëntering] —

Yet for a moment let me look on her

This, then, is Priam's daughter

Cassandra, and a Prophetess, whom Zeus

Has given into my hands to minister

Among my slaves. Didst thou prophesy that?

Well some more famous have so fallen before-
Even Heracles, the son of Zeus, they say

Was sold, and bowed his shoulder to the yoke. Chorus

And, if needs must a captive, better far

Of some old house that affluent Time himself
Has taught the measure of prosperity,
Than drunk with sudden superfluity.
Clytemnestra-

Chorus

Even so.
You hear? Therefore at once descend
From that triumphal chariot - And yet
She keeps her station still, her laurel on,
Disdaining to make answer.

Nay, perhaps,
Like some stray swallow blown across the seas,
Interpreting no twitter but her own.

Clytemnestra

But, if barbarian, still interpreting
The universal language of the hand.

Chorus

Which yet again she does not seem to see,
Staring before her with wide-open eyes
As in a trance.

Clytemnestra-
Ay, ay, a prophetess -
Phoebus Apollo's minion once — Whose now?
A time will come for her. See you to it:
A greater business now is on my hands:
For lo! the fire of Sacrifice is lit,
And the grand victim by the altar stands.

Cassandra-
Chorus

Chorus [continuing].

Still a muttered and half-blind
Superstition haunts mankind,

[Exit CLYTEMNESTRA.

That, by some divine decree
Yet by mortal undivined,
Mortal Fortune must not over-
Leap the bound he cannot see;
For that even wisest labor
Lofty-building, builds to fall,
Evermore a jealous neighbor
Undermining floor and wall.
So that on the smoothest water
Sailing, in a cloudless sky,
The wary merchant overboard
Flings something of his precious hoard
To pacify the jealous eye,

That will not suffer man to swell

Over human measure. Well,

As the Gods have ordered we

Must take I know not let it be.

But, by rule of retribution,

Hidden, too, from human eyes,

Fortune in her revolution,

If she fall, shall fall to rise:
And the hand of Zeus dispenses
Even measure in the main:
One short harvest recompenses
With a glut of golden grain;
So but men in patience wait

Fortune's counter revolution
Axled on eternal Fate;

And the Sisters three that twine,
Cut not short the vital line;

For indeed the purple seed
Of life once shed-

Phoebus Apollo !

The lips at last unlocking.

Hark!

Cassandra

Chorus

Phoebus! Phoebus!

Well, what of Phoebus, maiden? though a name "Tis but disparagement to call upon

Thorough trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
Over water seething, and behind the breathing
Warhorse in the darkness - till you rose again –
Took the helm-took the rein-

Chorus

As one that half asleep at dawn recalls

A night of Horror!

Cassandra

Hither, whither, Phoebus? And with whom,
Leading me, lighting me-

Chorus

Cassandra

I can answer that—

Down to what slaughterhouse?

Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it-drags me toward it.
Phoebus! Apollo! Apollo!

Chorus

One of the dismal prophet pack, it seems,

That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault

This is no den of slaughter, but the house

Of Agamemnon.

Cassandra

Down upon the towers

Phantoms of two mangled Children hover and a famished

man,

At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours!

Chorus

Thyestes and his children! Strange enough

For any maiden from abroad to know,

Or, knowing

Cassandra

And look! in the chamber below

The terrible Woman, listening, watching,

Under a mask, preparing the blow

In the fold of her robe

Chorus

Nay, but again at fault:

For in the tragic story of this House
Unless, indeed, the fatal Helen-

No woman—

Cassandra

No Woman-Tisiphone! Daughter

Of Tartarus-love-grinning Woman above,

Dragon-tailed under- honey-tongued, Harpy-clawed,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter

She wheedles, entices, him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent

Chorus

Whose stony lips once open vomit out

Such uncouth horrors.

Cassandra

Peace, mad woman, peace!

I tell you the lioness

Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting

Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,

Bounds hither-Phoebus, Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,
Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,

From my slaughtered kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine, Slavelike to be butchered, the daughter of a Royal line? Chorus

And so returning, like a nightingale
Returning to the passionate note of woe
By which the silence first was broken!
Cassandra

A nightingale, a nightingale, indeed,
That, as she "Itys! Itys! Itys!" so
I"Helen! Helen! Helen!" having sung
Amid my people, now to those who flung

Oh,

And trampled on the nest, and slew the young,

Keep crying "Blood! blood! blood!" and none will heed! Now what for me is this prophetic weed,

And what for me is this immortal crown,

Who like a wild swan from Scamander's reed

Chanting her death song float Cocytus-down?

There let the fatal Leaves to perish lie!

To perish, or enrich some other brow
With that all-fatal gift of Prophecy

They palpitated under Him who now,

Checking his flaming chariot in mid sky,

With divine irony sees disadorn

The wretch his love has made the people's scorn,
The raving quean, the mountebank, the scold,
Who, wrapt up in the ruin she foretold