Yet this idealist and mystic was destined to suffer the worst brutalities of war in the hour of Troy’s destruction. She was made captive at her own altar; and was carried away by Agamemnon to be his slave-wife and the rival of his queen. The mind revolts at the thought: it is too awful to contemplate, and will not shape itself in cold reflection. The poets seem to have felt this; and we find that Æschylus and Euripides, who have both dwelt upon the story of Cassandra’s downfall, rise to stormy heights of emotion when they tell about it.
Euripides has placed Cassandra in the group of royal women in his _Troades_. The time of the drama is the morning which follows the overthrow of Troy; and the action represents the carrying-off of the princesses by their captors. It is, one would think, a time and a scene quite unfitted for dramatic presentation. The immense excitement—of victory on the one hand and defeat upon the other—has ebbed away; and all that remains to the Trojan women is misery so profound and hopeless as almost to be beyond the power of expression. The measure of their pain seems to claim a reverent silence; and we feel that the _Troades_ does need the sanction of the ethical purpose which Professor Murray has found in it. But once we realize the deep and humane thought behind it: that the poet has chosen this part of the story expressly to reveal the hideous suffering which war entails upon women, the tragedy is fraught with significance.
The final act of Cassandra’s life is given by Æschylus in the _Agamemnon_. He, no less than Euripides, feels the appalling tragedy of her story; and both poets have put into her lips lyrics of wild and haunting beauty. But Æschylus, by removing the action to Mycenæ and by bringing Cassandra into conflict with Clytemnestra, has wrought a climax of extraordinary power.
If there be any truth in the legend, it was Cassandra who first recognized the shepherd Paris for the son of Priam. The stripling who descended from the glens of Mt. Ida to compete in the games outside the city was unknown and unloved by the Trojans whom he defeated. They were jealous of the handsome stranger who carried off the prizes from them; and he soon found himself embroiled with Priam’s athletic sons. He was hard beset. The odds were heavy against him; and like a hunted animal he flung himself before the altar of Apollo for protection.