Cassandra
in Greek legend, the fairest princess of Troy. She was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, consequently the sister of Hector and of Paris, whose theft of Grecian Helen brought the war upon the Trojan city. According to one legend, Cassandra and her twin sister were left overnight on a couch of laurel in the temple of Apollo. In the morning the sisters were found with two serpents licking their ears. As a consequence, Cassandra was gifted with such acuteness of ear that she could hear the conversation of the gods, and was able to prophesy. She foretold the fall of Troy and protested frantically against the admission of the wooden horse within its walls; but Apollo, whose advances she had repulsed, was angry and caused her protests to be made in vain. At the fall of the city, she fled to the temple of Minerva, but was torn away and abused by Ajax. She was taken to Greece as one of the slaves of Agamemnon, and was put to death by his wife, Clytemnestra. Cassandra was a favorite subject with ancient poets and sculptors. Modern writers also have found material in her story. She appears in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. In Schiller's poem, Cassandra, the prophetess is represented as bewailing her fate in not being believed.
And men my prophet wail deride!
And lonely in the waste, I hide
The tortured heart that would forewarn.
Amid the happy, unregarded,
Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod;
Oh, dark to me the lot awarded,
Thou evil Pythian God!
Oh, wherefore am I thus consigned,
With eyes that every truth must see,
Lone in the city of the blind?
Cursed with the anguish of a power
To view the fates I may not thrall
The hovering tempest still must lower,
The horror must befall!
Those who foresee and predict the downfall, meet the fate of Cassandra.--The Times.