Ye powers, whose hate
Of Atreus' home no blood can satiate,
Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!

CHORUS

Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,
Shriek o'er the house? Thine is no cheering word.
Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel
My waning life-blood run--
The blood that round the wounding steel
Ebbs slow, as sinks life's parting sun--
Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on!

CASSANDRA

Away, away--keep him away--
The monarch of the herd, the pasture's pride,
Far from his mate! In treach'rous wrath,
Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe
She gores his fenceless side!
Hark! in the brimming bath,
The heavy plash--the dying cry--
Hark--in the laver--hark, he falls by treachery!

CHORUS

I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,
Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.
O dark prophetic speech,