Cassandra's Lament

I am about to die. I see the waters swirling red, the crazed glint of steel, the axe. My master is dead and the mistress stands there gloating, frightened. Is her lover, Aegisthus there? Yes, standing beside her, but no, cowering in the city, too afraid. He did not respond to the call of war, he’s not even a Greek.

There is rage at my presence. She did not expect her husband, after killing her beloved Iphigenia, to hurt her further by claiming a Trojan concubine and disrespecting her in front of Mycenae. She will coax me inside the palace with honeyed words and she expects me to walk blindly into my own death. I think not. I choose to die in the manner I prefer, singing my funeral song and hoping the gods take pity on me. She will falter when it comes to my end, she does not understand I am ready to die. My poor Troy! Why did you not listen to my frenzied warnings? Lost to flames. Cursed Apollo!

The fire, the screams, the swords, the blood, the smoke, the ash, the whimpers, the wails and there I stood, shouting the evils that were to come but my Apollo closed your ears to my pleas.

“Ignore her, she is the flame-haired, mad daughter of Priam and she burbles nonsense.”

They don’t think that anymore. They do not think at all. Dead. All dead. All dead or taken. Mother! Slave to the cunning Odysseus. Your fate shall be short lived, Odysseus will spend ten years wandering. All dead. Gods! The last of my kinfolk, save bold Aeneas. He shall live on and found the Roman Empire, an empire for the Trojans! Even after ten years of suffering, starvation and poverty. This gives me hope. Clytemnestra shall meet her end at the hand of her son. He is bound by duty to his father as is her daughter. Together they end the tyranny. I can see this as I walk to the palace. All shall be well eventually.

Well, I welcome death. I have been forsaken. I was raped at the altar of the whore goddess Athena by a filthy Greek, Ajax the Lesser. Not even one of their so called heroes. Why did you desert us? No! Let’s not disrespect the gods. I can’t. I can’t. All dead. All gone. All dead and still Troy burns...