TFBT: Prose Version of "I, the Goddess Cassandra"

“Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony! 1215 Once more the dreadful ordeal [ponos] of true prophecy whirls and distracts me with its ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred, 1220 their hands full of the meat of their own flesh; they are clear to my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts—piteous burden!^[1]

 

This is the Cassandra that tradition gives us and is foremost in our minds; a half-mad character, foaming at the mouth, hysterical, helpless to escape her doom, hair-risen and shaken, seeing visions of horrific things no one else sees.  She predicts that “by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies.”^[2]   Considering the above tirade and most of her wailing in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon we might be persuaded to believe that she is helpless and hapless.  But why should we be persuaded by her performance when Cassandra herself says, “I consented (marriage) to Loxias but broke my word…Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.”^[3] Rather I contend Cassandra was a second-sighted seeress who moved with Machiavellian skill to the most blessed state a mortal can know.

 

Let’s start with her story.  In [1] happier days the Scamander, was her native stream.  Upon his sandy banks and flowery meadows she wandered.^[4] Beneath the elms, the Pleiades’ chargers and amongst the willows and tamarisks, besid[2] e “the lotus, rushes and the galingale, that round the fair streams of the river grew abundantly”.^[5]  Leaving gifts for the naiads, the daughters of Lord Xanthus upon his sandy banks, combs for their hair and “sacred toys” for their hands in preparation for their dances upon Mt Ida.^[6] 

 

Her father was King Priam of Troy.  “Priam ruled from a magnificent palace, which was fronted by marble colonnades. In the main building there were fifty apartments of polished stone, where his sons lived with their wives. His daughters occupied the chambers in the building on the other side of the courtyard, and there they lived with the sons-in-law of the king.”^[7]   In his youth her father journeyed to the land of Phrygia, rich in vines, and there he saw in multitudes the Phrygian warriors, masters of glancing steeds, even “the people of Otreus and godlike Mygdon, that were then encamped along the banks of Sangarius.” Priam was accounted an ally of the Phrygians when the Amazons, equal-to-men, came against them. ^[8]  All these nations will play apart in the war to come. 

 

Cassandra’s mother was Hecuba, wife of Priam, mother of Hector; he was “the invincible, steadfast pillar of Troy”. ^[9] Queen Hecuba dreamed once that she gave birth to  a fire-brand; a torch. ^[10]

 

Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus  were left by their  parents in the shrine of the Thymbraean Apollo. There the Thymbrios River flows through the plain and empties into the Scamander River.^[11] 

 

“…the festival in honour of the birth of the twins was being held in the sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, the two children played with each other there and fell asleep in the temple. Meantime the parents and their friends, flushed with wine, had gone home, forgetting all about the twins whose birth had given occasion to the festivity. Next morning, when they were sober, they returned to the temple and found the sacred serpents purging with their tongues the organs of sense of the children. Frightened by the cry which the women raised at the strange sight, the serpents disappeared among the laurel boughs which lay beside the infants on the floor; but from that hour Cassandra and Helenus possessed the gift of prophecy.”  ^[12]

 

In like manner Melampus is said to have acquired the art of soothsaying through the action of serpents which licked his ears.  He…

“lived in the country, and before his house there was an oak, in which there was a lair of snakes. His servants killed the snakes, but Melampus gathered wood and burnt the reptiles, and reared the young ones. And when the young were full grown, they stood beside him at each of his shoulders as he slept, and they purged his ears with their tongues. He started up in a great fright, but understood the voices of the birds flying overhead, and from what he learned from them he foretold to men what should come to pass. He acquired besides the art of taking the auspices, and having fallen in with Apollo at the (River) Alpheus he was ever after an excellent soothsayer.”^[13] 

In due time Cassandra would have her own interview with Apollo alongside a lovely river.  

Her twin-brother Helenus was the greatest seer among the Trojans and their allies.  and could understand the will of the gods.^[14] He was also a warrior and one of the leaders of the host attempting to take the black ships of the Achaeans.^[15]   His birth name was Scamandrius, named, like his nephew Astyanax,  for the local river.  He “received the name of Helenus from a Thracian seer, who also instructed him in the prophetic art.” ^[16]  It was Helenus, who predicted that if that fire-brand, Prince Alexander brought home an Argive wife, the Achaeans would pursue, destroy Troy, and then slay their father and all their brothers.^[17]   

Naturally when Cassandra heard of her father’s intentions to send Hector and Paris to Sparta her words echoed her twin’s,  telling what the Trojans would suffer if he should sent a fleet into Greece.^[18] “I see thee, hapless city, fired a second time by Aeacide hands.” ^[19] 

With the war came her suitors; Othryoneus, Coroebus and Loxias^[20], Lord of Ptoon

●     “Othryoneus of Cabesus…asked in marriage the comeliest of the daughters of Priam, even Cassandra; he brought no gifts of wooing,” ^[21]

●     Coroebus, the son of Mygdon. Coroebus came to marry Cassandra, and was killed.^[22]  He died the day after he arrived when the son of Tydeus plunged his spear point beneath the left ribs of the Phrygian.^[23]

●     Apollo, Lord of the Seasons whom Cassandra also spurned as if she was following Athena’s example and intending to be a virgin for life. ^[24]  But maybe she had a better reason.    Pausanias (5.18.2) says; ““Idas brings back, not against her will, fair-ankled Marpessa, daughter of Evenus, whom Apollo carried off.”   Cassandra didn’t chose Apollo as a spouse, maybe for the same reason Marpessa didn’t.  “because she feared that Apollo might desert her in her old age”^[25]

 

The one night the war was over!  The Achaeans were gone.  Abandoning their camp and leaving a gift for Athena; the wooden sculpture of a horse, which we know of as the Trojan Horse. 

“So feasted they through Troy, and in their midst loud pealed the flutes and pipes: on every hand were song and dance, laughter and cries confused of banqueters beside the meats and wine. They, lifting in their hands the beakers brimmed, recklessly drank, till heavy of brain they grew, till rolled their fluctuant eyes. Now and again some mouth would babble the drunkard's broken words. The household gear, the very roof and walls seemed as they rocked: all things they looked on seemed whirled in wild dance. About their eyes a veil of mist dropped” ^[26] 

 

Her twin-brother and fellow seer Helenus was already with the Achaeans.  (He went on to attain his best possible fate; husband to the daughter of Eetion and King of Molossus. ^[27])   The sooth-sayer Laocoon, brother of Anchises was dead. ^[28]  But, “One heart was steadfast, and one soul clear-eyed, Cassandra”^[29]   She knew perfectly well the Achaeans’ purpose for this horse  and “the ambush hidden there.”  And she was “As mid the hills a furious pantheress… with savage heart. ”  (1260)

 

That night the Horse birthed and the gates burst open. The city was set afire and the streets flooded with blood. It is not surprising that a virgin should take sanctuary in the temple of the virgin-goddess Athena.  Did this seeress know that Athena did not love the Trojans? (Iliad 6.310)  Did Cassandra foresee that the Locrian Ajax, would find her there clinging to the wooden image of Athena?  That he would drag her from there knocking the goddess’ image to the ground in the process?  ^[30]          Did she know that consequently the majority of the Danaans would die when gods sent a storm and contrary winds against them?  That her  enemies and the enemies of her people upon returning home after the destruction of her my home and the division of her our wealth would wreck on the Cepharean Rocks thanks to the anger of the gods?

 

She was  the loveliest of Priam’s daughters so naturally when the loot was portioned out she received as her prize, finally, as husband the greatest of the Achaean kings; Agamemnon. For those who don’t know the story, men die.  So do women.  So did Cassandra.  (Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

 

But that doesn’t end her story

 

“And my husband shall be called Zeus (-Agamemnon^[31])  by the crafty Spartiates, obtaining highest honours from the children of Oebalus. ^[32]  Nor shall my worship be nameless among men, nor fade hereafter in the darkness of oblivion. But the chiefs of the Daunians shall build for me a shrine on the banks of the Salpe, and those also who inhabit the city of Dardanus,  beside the waters of the lake. And when girls wish to escape the yoke of maidens, refusing for bridegrooms men adorned with locks such as Hector wore, but with defect of form or reproach of birth, they will embrace my image with their arms, winning of mighty shield against marriage, having clothed them in the garb of the Erinyes  and dyed their faces with magic simples. By those staff-carrying women I shall long be called an immortal goddess[3] .” ^[33]

 

I like to think of Cassandra, the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters wandering upon other sandy banks and flowery meadows. Maybe hand-in-hand with her sister-in-law Helen, the most beautiful of  Priam’s daughters-in-laws. Because;

 

“Zeus the son of Cronos made…(a) nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven- gated Thebe when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen's sake: there death's end enshrouded a part of them. But to the others father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep swirling Ocean”^[34]

---

^[1]Agamemnon, Aeschylus (Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Gregory Crane and Graeme Bird. Further Revised by Gregory Nagy.)  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?page_id=6586 

^[2]  1156 Agamemnon, Aeschylus (Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Gregory Crane and Graeme Bird. Further Revised by Gregory Nagy.)  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?page_id=6586

^[3] 1208 & 1212  Agamemnon, Aeschylus (Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Gregory Crane and Graeme Bird. Further Revised by Gregory Nagy.)  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?page_id=6586

^[4] 1156 Agamemnon, Aeschylus (Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Gregory Crane and Graeme Bird. Further Revised by Gregory Nagy.)  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?page_id=6586

^[5] 21. 347 Homeric Iliad, Translated by Samuel Butler, Revised by Soo-Young Kim, Kelly McCray, Gregory Nagy, and Timothy Power.  http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286

^[6] Collunthus, “The Rape of Helen” 1, Oppian, Colluthus and Tryphiodorus. Translated by Mair, A. W. Loeb Classical Library Volume 219. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1928.    http://www.theoi.com/Text/Colluthus.html

^[7]  Iliad 6.240  Translated by Samuel Butler, Revised by Soo-Young Kim, Kelly McCray, Gregory Nagy, and Timothy Power.  http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286

 

^[8] 3.182  Homeric Iliad, Translated by Samuel Butler, Revised by Soo-Young Kim, Kelly McCray, Gregory Nagy, and Timothy Power.  http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286

^[9] 2.89  Homer, Odyssey Samuel Butler’s translation, revised by Timothy Power, Gregory Nagy, Soo-Young Kim, and Kelly McCray. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0. http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5287

^[10] [3.12.5] Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.  http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html

^[11] Strabo, Geography 13.1.35 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+13.1.35&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198

^[12] Notes on the Library of Apollodorus bY J. G. Frazer Book 3, footnote  230    Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. 

.http://www.theoi.com/Text/Ap3c.html

^[13] Apollodorus, Library 1.9.11

^[14] vi. 76, vii. 44  Homeric Iliad, Translated by Samuel Butler, Revised by Soo-Young Kim, Kelly McCray, Gregory Nagy, and Timothy Power.  http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286

^[15]. xii. 94.   Homeric Iliad, Translated by Samuel Butler, Revised by Soo-Young Kim, Kelly McCray, Gregory Nagy, and Timothy Power.  http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286

^[16] Eustath. ad Hom. p. 626 via William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. London. John Murray: printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=helenus-bio-1

^[17] Dares of Phrygia,  History of the Fall of Troy 7 The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian. Translated by R. M. Frazer (Jr.). Indiana University Press. 1966.

 http://www.theoi.com/Text/DaresPhrygius.html 

^[18] Dares of Phrygia History of the Fall of Troy 8 

^[19] Lychophron, Alexandra 31

^[20] Another name for Apollo, (Herod. i. 91,  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=1496#Sourcebook

^[21] Hom. Il. xiii. 363 http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=1496#Sourcebook

^[22] Pausanias 10.27.1 http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=1496#Sourcebook

^[23] Quintus Smyrnaeus. The Fall of Troy 13.190  Translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913  http://www.theoi.com/Text/QuintusSmyrnaeus1.html

^[24] Lycophron Alexandra 352-353, Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron. Aratus. Translated by Mair, A. W. & G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921.    http://www.theoi.com/Text/LycophronAlexandra.html

^[25] Apollodorus. The Library 1.7.9 . Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921  http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html

^[26] Quintus Smyrnaeus. The Fall of Troy 13.1. Translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913  http://www.theoi.com/Text/QuintusSmyrnaeus1.html 

^[27] Pausanias [1.11.2] http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=1496#Sourcebook

^[28] Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E5. 17 (trans. Aldrich)  http://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html

^[29] Quintus Smyrnaeus. The Fall of Troy 12.565. Translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913  http://www.theoi.com/Text/QuintusSmyrnaeus1.html

^[30] Apollodorus, Epitome of the Library 5.22, translation by J.G. Frazier  

^[31] Agamemnôn. A surname of Zeus, under which he was worshipped at Sparta. (Lycophr. 335, with the School.; Eustath. ad Il. ii. 25.) via Atsma at http://www.theoi.com/Cult/ZeusTitles.html  Also, Clement of Alexandria. Translated by Butterworth, G W. Loeb Classical Library Volume 92. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1919. http://www.theoi.com/Text/ClementExhortation1.html

^[32] Husband of Gorgophone  ancestress of the gods of the Spartans http://shortstories-bill.blogspot.com/2013/01/wfbt-divine-descendants-of-gorgophone.html

^[33] Alexandra 3.1122

^[34] Hesiod, Works & Days 156  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=1496#Sourcebook