The moment is crowded with emotion. For the briefest space—merely long enough, in fact, to make the Trojan woman formally known to Clytemnestra—these three strong spirits face each other. Cassandra, wide-eyed and rigid, looks beyond the king and queen, beyond the crowding people, at _something_ that her vision warns her is beyond the palace doors. To Clytemnestra, her presence is an insult, and her purity an intolerable reproach. There is one glance of bitterness and hatred from the queen which Cassandra does not see; and then the insolent king enters the palace, Clytemnestra following him. She returns immediately, however, lashed to a fury in which her dignity goes to shreds. CLY. _In with thee too, Cassandra! Get thee in! Since Heaven in mercy hath consigned thee here To share our household lustral waters, one Of many slaves that stand around our hearth. Come from that carriage. Be not proud. Descend!_ The speech is cruel; and it has, moreover, an inner meaning which the poor captive perceives only too well. She does not answer. She listens in silence, too, when the Chorus address her; and when Clytemnestra, with that crucial moment imminent, grows wild with impatience. “Sure she is mad,” ejaculates the angry queen; “I’ll not demean myself by throwing more words away.” Only when she has gone does Cassandra break silence; and then by a wail which the sympathetic Elders cannot understand. “_Ai, Ai! O Apollo! Apollo!... Builder! Destroyer! Builder of Troy! Destroyer of me!_“[19] The old men pity her, and try to calm her frenzy. She looks round on them, as if awakening from a dream, and asks what house is this. They reply that it is the Atridæ’s palace, and the word calls up to Cassandra the long black record of the house of Atreus. CASS. _Ah! a hideous den, abhorred of Heaven, Guilt-stained with strangled lives.... Ah! faugh!_ CHO. _Her scent is keen, this stranger’s! Like a hound She snuffs for blood. And she will find, I doubt me._[19] In a long recital, Cassandra recounts the ancient crimes of the Atridæ; and in dark oracular language moans that there is worse behind. The old men are perplexed. They cannot follow her meaning, though over and over again she struggles to make clear the doom that is even now about to fall. CASS. _Ah! what is this? Oh me! What strange new grief is risen? A deed of might ..._ _An act Of hate for love; and succour bides aloof, Far, far away._ CHO. _This prophecy is dark to me...._ CASS. ... _’Twill come, ‘Tis here! She lifts her hand; she launches at him Blow following blow!_ CHO. _Thy speech appals me._