Cassandra's Capture

Pride goeth before a fall, It shall be said, long after. How well the phrase fits this Argive king, Come far across the wine-dark seas In his gleaming ships of war To rape the wealth of other men's homes All for the sake of a woman; So it was said. Here in the smoke of the ruins, Behind walls breached at the last by treachery, - 10 years' bloodshed not enough to have battered them down - Troy's temples lay sacked and belching fumes for incense, Then here he comes, blazing in bronze, puffed with pride, To claim you, as his rightful prize alone! You, Whom even the gods respect. Mad you are, blissfully so. Yours eyes, flashing in your mantic states See farther and more truly than those Of any other mortal. You know the things to be all too well, For this you were cursed with a great gift of prophecy Forever doomed to fall upon deaf ears. But today the curse becomes the gift it should have been, If to see a proud victor's doom Riding hard upon his heels, he all unknowing Be any comfort to the defeated. He takes you to his death and your own besides, Mistaking the darkness of your smile For the resignation of the lost. He bears home with you the fall of all his house, Many a proud one shall join you both In Hades' cold halls ere long has passed. So bid your mother not despair To see you taken and treated so lowly; Bid her rejoice in your ravings, Tell her raise the torch and call on Hymen To bless and seal this doom Which has been set to avenge your righteous dead Who fell beneath these now so hollow walls. Exhort her not to weep for her mad daughter, Who, in being made concubine to this beast Weds high indeed in final truth, As through this match she goes to a god, And he the one most truly feared. The torchlight flashing Like starlight in your rolling eyes! Your beauty as you whirled there, Absorbed in frenzied grief Became a sight before which divinity trembled! Your broken people smiled in pity for you, Eyes full and dimmed with tears. Yet it is enough, perhaps, for you alone to know As you are carried off across the lashing seas To the enemy land, The flames of your dead city Lighting the night's horizon, Holding in your heart the bittersweet truth none would believe, You commune with the Eternal, Bearing gall and misery To an arrogant fool.