Chorus.
Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?[1]
Cassandra.
Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud
The monarch's fate and mine—enough of life.
Ah friends!
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream[2]
I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death's revenge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.
Grant me this boon—the last before I die.
Chorus.
Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.
Cassandra.
Once more one utterance but not of wail,
Though for my death—and then I speak no more.
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred's slayers, quit withal
- ↑ The Syrian scent, to which the Chorus attribute Cassandra's disgust (which is in reality the quickened and prophetic fore-sense of blood soon to be shed), is either from some perfume burning on the altars within, or possibly, as has been suggested to me, the scent of perfumed cedar boxes, in which the bright purples strewn upon the path have been preserved.
- ↑ "Birds that shun the bush," i.e. birds that have been limed in a bush. cf. Henry VI, Part iii., Act v., Sc. 6:—
"The bird that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush." - ↑ I have adopted here the conjectural emendations of Dr. Kennedy.
