Hecuba shows that mixture of shame and reverence that prose
kindred always do, towards the inspired child, the poet, the elected
sufferer for the race.
When the herald announces that she is chosen to be the mistress of
Agamemnon, Hecuba answers indignant, and betraying the involuntary
pride and faith she felt in this daughter.
"The virgin of Apollo, whom the God,
Radiant with golden looks, allowed to live.
In her pure vow of maiden chastity?
_Tal_. With love the raptured virgin smote his heart.
_Hec_. Cast from thee, O my daughter, cast away
Thy sacred wand; rend off the honored wreaths,
The splendid ornaments that grace thy brows."
But the moment Cassandra appears, singing wildly her inspired song,
Hecuba, calls her
"My _frantic_ child."
Yet how graceful she is in her tragic phrenzy, the chorus shows--
"How sweetly at thy house's ills thou smilest,
Chanting what haply thou wilt not show true!"
But if Hecuba dares not trust her highest instinct about her daughter,
still less can the vulgar mind of the herald (a man not without
tenderness of heart, but with no princely, no poetic blood) abide the
wild, prophetic mood which insults his prejudices both as to country
and decorums of the sex.
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