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Cassandra and Helen: The Burden of Beauty and Knowing
Sentinels of humanity?
“I was the victim of both social orders: of Apollo’s waxing patriarchy, & of Clytemnestra’s last spasms of outraged matriarchy. My father, Priam probably would have said: that I had asked for it. That no society could be expected to tolerate an individual who insisted on telling the truth.”
― Ursule Molinaro, The Autobiography of Cassandra, Princess & Prophetess of Troy“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”
I'm not sure how many people are aware of the full story of Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy and Queen Hecuba. Her elder brother was Hector, the Trojan hero of the Greek-Trojan War, who fought “swift-footed” superhuman/demigod Achilles in single combat and was brutally slain.
Cassandra had both the gift and the curse of knowing the future because she had rejected the ‘matrimonial’ advances of the Greek god Apollo, and he made it so that nobody would believe a single word she uttered about her visions.
In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no wedding promise to Apollo, but rather the power of foresight was given to her as an enticement to enter into a ‘romantic’ engagement (a pre-nup?), and the curse of not…
