Wilt in the bath thy wedded consort cheer?
How speak the issue? Soon it will be here;—
Hand after hand is lifted. Woe the while! 1080
Chorus.
I comprehend her not; this mystic lore,
These blear-eyed oracles perplex me sore.
Cassandra. Strophe V.
Woe! woe! Look! look! What see I there?
Is it, ye gods, a net of hell?
The wife herself, joint-slayer, is the snare.
Now o'er the accursed rite
Let the dread brood of Night,
Unglutted with the race, their chorus swell!
Chorus. Strophe VI.
What Fury 'gainst this house doth summon? What,
The shriek to raise? Such utt'rance cheers me not.
Pallid through every vein 1090
Blood to my heart doth run,
Which to the battle-slain
Quencheth life's sun;
But Atè comes amain.
Cassandra. Antistrophe V.
Hold! hold! Woe! woe! The heifer there
Keep from the bull. In meshes fell
†Of black-woofed garb entangled,—guileful snare,—
Catching,—she smites him dead;—
Prone in his watery bed
He falls. The laver's guileful doom I tell.
