Whose scanty blood scarce stained the gleaming brand.
Cassandra: Restrain your tears which lingering time awaits,
Ye Trojan dames; weep not for me and mine. 660
Let each bewail her several woes; but I
For my own heavy grief have tears enough.
Band: Yet 'tis a balm of grief to know
That our own tears with others' flow;
More sharply gnaws the hidden care 665
Which we with others may not share:
And thou, though strong of soul, inured to grief,
Canst not in thine own weeping find relief.
Though Philomel for Itys sing 670
Her sad, sweet notes in wakening spring;
Though Procne, with insistent din,
Bewail her husband's hidden sin; 675
Not these, with all their passionate lament,
Can voice the sorrows in thy bosom pent.
Let Cycnus raise his dying song,
And its soft, plaintive strains prolong;
Let Halcyon mourn her Ceyx brave, 680
A-flutter o'er the tossing wave;
Let priests of tower-crowned Cybele 685
Their tears for Attis share with thee:
Still would our tears in no such measure flow, 690
For sufferings like these no limits know.
[Cassandra lays aside her fillets.]
But why dost lay aside the sacred wool?
Most by the wretched should the gods be feared.
Cassandra: But ills like mine o'erleap the bounds of fear. 695
I'll supplicate the heavenly gods no more,
For now am I beyond their power to harm,
And I have drained to dregs the cup of fate.
No country have I left, no sister, sire;
For tombs and altars have my blood consumed. 700
Where is that happy throng of brothers now?
Departed all! And only weak old men
Remain within the lonely palace walls
To serve the wretched king; and these, alas,
Throughout those stately chambered halls behold,
