Cassandra sees the shadows round
the house of Atreus
She sees
Beyond the seeming,
Beyond the royal homecoming,
Beyond a wife who welcomes
The conquering hero down from his chariot
With honeyed words
Beyond the tapestries which
stream like blood from the house of Atreus
Beyond the daughter sacrificed for a fair wind,
Beyond the mother plotting to avenge a daughter's sacrifice.
She sees Atreus who brought
A curse down on his house
By feeding Zeus the flesh of a boy
To test the god's all-seeingness.
Demeter, a mother bereft,
Did not notice what she is eating.
Grieving mothers and sacrificed children
Are the weft of the story.
Cassandra sees she is caught in a net.
It is more terrible to know
Your hour of death
Than to die unseeing.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem