Sweet life, unmarred by tears, is thine:
But me awaits the double-edgèd blade.
Chorus. Antistrophe VIII.
Whence hast thou these prophetic throes,
Rushing athwart thy soul, in vain? 1120
Why body forth in dismal strain,
Blent with shrill cries, these direful woes?
Whence cometh thus to vex thy soul
Of prophecy the dark, ill-omened goal?
Cassandra. Strophe IX.
Oh, nuptial rite, oh, nuptial rite,
Of Paris, fraught with doom!
Scamander! whence my fathers drank,
Nourished of yore upon thy bank,
I throve in youthful bloom.
Me now Cocytos and the streams of night 1130
To augur on their dismal shores invite.
Chorus. Strophe X.
What thought hast uttered all too clear?
An infant might interpret here.
Smitten within am I with gory sting,
The while thy bird-like cry to hear
My heart doth wring.
Cassandra. Antistrophe IX.
Oh deadly coil, oh, deadly coil
Of Ilion, doomed to fall!
Alas, the flower-cropping kine
Slain by my father at the shrine
