Cassandra

 

(kəsăn'drə) , in Greek legend, Trojan princess, daughter of Priam and Hecuba. She was given the power of prophecy by Apollo, but because she would not accept him as a lover, he changed her blessing to a curse, causing her prophecies never to be believed. While seeking refuge from the Greeks during the Trojan War, she was dragged from the temple of Athena and violated by the Locrian Ajax. After the war she was the slave of Agamemnon and was killed with him by his wife Clytemnestra. She was also known as Alexandra.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra(Greek: Κασσάνδρα "she who entangles men") (also known as Alexandra) was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy whose beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy (or, more correctly, prescience). However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions.

History

In an alternative version, she spent a night at Apollo's temple with her twin brother Helenus, at which time the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future. This is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes it brings an ability to understand the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future. ^{[citation needed]}

Apollo loved Cassandra, and when she did not return his love, he cursed her so that her gift would become a source of endless pain and frustration. In some versions of the myth, this is symbolized by the god spitting into her mouth; in other Greek versions, this act was sufficient to remove the gift so recently given by Apollo, but Cassandra's case varies. From the play Agamemnon, it appears that she made a promise to Apollo to become his consort, but broke it, thus incurring his wrath.

Telephus, the son of Heracles loved Cassandra but she scorned him and instead helped him seduce her sister Laodice.

While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies. Her family believed she was mad, and according to some versions, kept her locked up. In versions where she was incarcerated, this was typically portrayed as driving her truly insane, although in versions where she was not, she is usually viewed as remaining simply misunderstood.

Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy out of love for Cassandra. Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city.

After the Trojan War, she sought shelter in the temple of Athena, where she was raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra was then taken as a concubine by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. Unbeknownst to Agamemnon, while he was away at war, his wife, Clytemnestra, had begun an affair with Aegisthus. Upon Agamemnon and Cassandra's arrival in Mycenae, Clytemnestra asked her husband to walk across a purple tapestry, a sign of hubris. He initially refused, fearing the wrath of the gods, but gave in, ignoring Cassandra's warnings; by walking on the tapestries, he was committing sacrilege. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus then murdered both Agamemnon and Cassandra. Some sources mention that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, both of whom were killed by Aegisthus.

Homer. Iliad XXIV, 697-706; Homer. Odyssey XI, 405-434; Aeschylus. Agamemnon; Euripides. Trojan Women; Euripides. Electra; Apollodorus. Bibliotheke III, xii, 5; Apollodorus. Epitome V, 17-22; VI, 23; Virgil. Aeneid II, 246-

Modern adaptations

A modern psychological perspective on Cassandra is presented by Eric Shanower in Age of Bronze: Sacrifice. In this version, Cassandra, as a child, is molested by a man pretending to be a god. His warning "No one will believe you!" is one often spoken by abusers to their child victims.

A similar situation occurred in Lindsay Clarke's novel The Return from Troy (presented as a reawakened memory,) where a priest of Apollo forced himself upon Cassandra and was stopped only when she spat in his mouth. When the priest used his benevolent reputation to convince Priam that he was innocent of her wild claims, Cassandra subsequently went insane.

The myth of Cassandra is also retold by German author Christa Wolf in Kassandra. She retells the story from the point of view of Cassandra at the moment of her death and uses the myth as an allegory for the both the unheard voice of the woman writer and the oppression and strict censorship laws of East Germany.

The author Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote an historical novel called, Firebrand, which presents a story from Cassandra's point of view.

A modern play about Cassandra by Scott Savitz is available on-line [1]

In Markus Sedgwick's novel, The Foreshadowing, the main character, Alexandra has the gift of foresight, she mainly sees the death and pain of others. Plus, growing up in England during World War I, her power is feared and unbelieved. In the novel she reads about the myth of Cassandra and relates to her. The name, Alexandra, is also another adaption of the name Cassandra.

In Clemence McLearn's Inside the Walls of Troy, Cassandra has a strong friendship with Queen Helen of Sparta when she came to Troy with Prince Paris. Cassandra essentially hated Helen but gave in to her unbearable joy and happiness and became Helen's "confidant". At the end of the story instead of Cassandra being raped and taken as Agamemnon's "battle prize", she simply joined her two sisters, Polyxena and Laodice at the temple of Athena. The rest of her story is left untold.

Modern usage

In more modern literature, Cassandra has often served as a model for tragedy and Romance, and has given rise to the archetypical character of someone whose prophetic insight is obscured by insanity, turning their revelations into riddles or disjointed statements that are not fully comprehended until after the fact. Notable examples are the character of River Tam from the science fiction TV series Firefly and the science fiction short story "Cassandra" by C. J. Cherryh.

Cassandra is the title of an episode of the British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. In it a futuristic computer, Cassandra, is discovered to have the ability to predict the future. She foretells a number of conversations and events which each come true, save for one scenario where Lister kills Rimmer in a jealous rage. It emerges this is a lie to try to punish Lister for his responsibility for her later death, which she correctly predicts he accidentally causes. The story in the episode deviates somewhat from myth in that she is not universally disbelieved. The theme of the futility or otherwise of trying to change the future is explored at several points in the episode.

The word Cassandra has become widely used. In modern usage, however, a "Cassandra" tends to describe someone who makes true predictions which are disbelieved.

The Cassandra syndrome is a fictional condition used to describe someone who believes that he or she can see the future but cannot do anything about it. Fictional character Dr. Kathryn Railly explores this syndrome and those who suffer from it in the film Twelve Monkeys.

In Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's Scream 2, Sidney Prescott, the main character played by Neve Campbell, is a mirror of Cassandra in the sense that she is cursed by forever being susceptible to murder, conspiracy, and being alone, and actually appears in a play within the film titled "Cassandra", where she also plays the lead. During the rest of the trilogy, she has made clear that if it weren't for her, the plot of the movies, and for Sidney, the events in her life, would have never happened, and that continually surviving attacks has made the ones closest to her even more vulnerable to the characteristics that plague her life. Sidney is also seen speaking the line, "You know, I saw it all coming. I knew it wasn't over," referring to the murders in Scream 2. This is a prophecy revealed, a play off of the curse that plagued Cassandra.

German power metal group Blind Guardian featured two songs about Cassandra and the Trojan War on their 2002 album A Night at the Opera, Under the Ice and And Then There Was Silence, the latter of which was the title track of the 2001 "warmup" single for the album.

The musical group ABBA released a song titled "Cassandra" as a B-side to a single at the very end of their time as an active group. Anni-Frid Lyngstad has the lead vocal and sings about Cassandra's departure from a town after some unnamed disasters have occurred and her own regret about not believing Cassandra's warnings. The song has been included in subsequent compilation CD releases.

In Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, the character Cassandra is quoted as saying "I see disaster. I see catastrophe. Worse, I see lawyers!"

The Melbourne Band Something for Kate released the song 'Cassandra Walks The Plank" as a B-side on their single "California" from 2007. Vocalist and guitarist Paul Dempsey later describes the song as a 'Straightforward angry rant' about warning signs in the modern world on their iTunes Originals release.

David Murray Black also released a song called "Prophet of Doom" in his CD "Sacred ground" about Cassandra.

Further reading

• Shanower, Eric. Age Of Bronze Volume 2: Sacrifice. Image Comics (2005). ISBN 1-58240-399-6.
• Clarke, Lindsay. The Return from Troy. HarperCollins (2005). ISBN 0-00-715027-X.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Firebrand. ISBN 0-451-45924-5
• Patacsil, Par. Cassandra. In The Likhaan Book of Plays 1997-2003. Villanueva and Nadera, eds. University of the Philippines Press (2006). ISBN 971-542-507-0

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