CHORUS chanting

Too plain is all, too plain! 
A child might read aright thy fateful strain. 
Deep in my heart their piercing fang 
Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard 
That piteous, low, tender word, 
Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.

CASSANDRA chanting

Woe for my city, woe for Ilion’s fall! 
Father, how oft with sanguine stain 
Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain 
That heaven might guard our wall! 
But all was shed in vain. 
Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell, 
And I–ah burning heart!–shall soon lie low as well.

CHORUS (chanting)
Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!

Alas, what power of ill
Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell
In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?
Some woe–I know not what–must close thy pious wail.

CASSANDRA (more calmly)
List! for no more the presage of my soul,

Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;
But as the morning wind blows clear the east,
More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,
And as against the low bright line of dawn
Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,
So in the clearing skies of prescience
Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,
And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.
Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side–
I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.
Within this house a choir abidingly
Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;
Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,
Man’s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,
Departing never, Furies of the home.
They sit within, they chant the primal curse,
Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,
The brother’s couch, the love incestuous
That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.
Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,
Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?
They called me once, The prophetess of lies,
The wandering hag, the pest of every door–
Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth
The house’s curse, the storied infamy.

Agamemnon by Aeschylus