As if the crisis were now determined the dialogue settles down into 'blank verse' again. _Cassandra ascends from Orchestra to Stage_. She will no longer speak veiled prophecy: it shall flow clear as wave against the sunlight. She begins with the Furies that never quit the house since that primal woe that defiled it--as she describes this the _Chorus_ wonder an alien can know the house's history so well--_Cassandra_ lets them know of her amour with Apollo, and how she gained the gift of prophecy and then deceived the God and was doomed to have her prophecies scorned.--Continuing her vision she points to the phantom children, 'their palms filled full with meat of their own flesh,' sitting on the house: in revenge for that deed another crime is this moment about to stain further the polluted dwelling, a brave hero falling at the hands of a coward, and by a plot his monster of a wife has contrived.--The _Chorus_ still perplexed, _Cassandra_ NAMES Agamemnon, the Chorus essaying vainly to stop the ill-fated utterance.--Then _Cassandra_ goes on to describe how she herself must be sacrificed with her new lord, a victim to the jealous murderess; bitterly reproaching Apollo, she strips from her the symbols and garb of her prophetic art, which the god has made so bitter to her, and moves to the 'butcher's block,' foretelling how the Son shall come as his father's avenger and hers.--The _Chorus_ ask, why go to meet your fate instead of escaping? _Cassandra_ knows Fate is inevitable.--Again and again she shrinks back from the door, 'tainted with the scent of death;' then gazing for the last time on the loved rays of the Sun, and invoking him as witness and avenger, she abandons herself to her doom.
Ah, life of man! when most it prospereth, { 1298} It is but limned in outline; and when brought To low estate, then doth the sponge, full soaked, Wipe out the picture with its frequent touch.
[_Passes through the Central Door into Palace._]
_The Chorus_ (_in lyrical rhythm_). It is true good fortune can never be fended from the visitation of evil, which no strong palace can bar out. What will it avail Agamemnon to have taken Troy and come in honor home, if it be really his destiny to pay the penalty of that old deed of bloodguiltiness? { 1313}