Kassandra on Homer Epics and Troy

08/02/2022

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Daughter of Priam, king of Troy, and his wife, Hekabes. Kassandra is the most interesting son of the king couple of Troy, after Hector and Paris. This young girl has a heartbreaking destiny, a tragic personality. Kassandra symbolizes the drama of the seer who tries to prevent the destructions with his power of seeing the future, but is affected and upset by the troubles that befall him because he cannot speak his mind.

Legends describe this power of Kassandra with various interpretations. According to one, when Cassandra and her twin brother Helenos were babies, Priam and Hekabe organized a feast in honor of Apollo from Thymbra in the god’s temple located outside the city, and at the end of the ceremony they forgot their children in the temple. The next morning, when they came to pick it up, they were met with a terrible sight: Kassandra and Helenos were sleeping in their cradles, but two snakes surrounded them, licking their eyes and ears. With this action, the senses of the children were purified and opened to the perception of the realities that people could not see or hear. Both had become priests.

Another legend explains Kassandra’s oracle as follows: God Apollo falls in love with Priam’s beautiful daughter, says that if he gives himself, he will gift her with the ability to see, Kassandra accepts, but does not want to give herself after receiving the gift from God. God, too, becomes enraged, spitting into the girl’s mouth, thereby rendering his gift ineffective: Kassandra will be able to see the future, screaming what she sees, but she will not be able to convince anyone of the truth of what she has said. Thus, Kassandra becomes a spokesperson who includes the god, like Pythia or Sibylla, and prophesies by being filled with the power of god, while Helenos is an interpreter who foretells the future by looking at the flight of birds and external signs. both were unfortunate

Kassandra foresaw and told all the events in the history of Troy: When Paris returned from Mount Ida, where she was left as a child, she wanted this young man to be killed immediately, then when she brought Helena on her return from Greece, she said that this woman would cause the destruction of Troy and should be sent back. When Priam came out of Achilles’ shack with Hector’s body, he announced that he had arrived in Troy without anyone noticing, and when the wooden horse stood in front of the walls, close to the destruction of the city, he tried to prevent the horse from being taken inside, with the help of Laokoon. There is also a legend that tells that Kassandra took refuge in the temple of Athena while Troy was being plundered, where she was attacked by little Aias. Aias pulls Kassandra away from the goddess statue she hugs, but she hardly saves herself from being stoned by the Achaeans because she sinned. Kassandra is given to Agamemnon as a slave in the end, but with this the real ordeal of the wise girl begins. Agamemnon fell in love with Priam’s daughter and took her to his palace in Mycenae. Until then, Kassandra remained a girl and a girl, and although she had many suitors, she did not marry. While her father was going to give her to an Anatolian valiant named Othryoneus, Kassandra was left unmarried after this man died in the war.

The legend of Kassandra’s arrival in Greece as a prisoner of Agamemnon became the subject of tragedy and inspired Aeschylus to one of his most powerful plays, “Agamemnon”. With this drama, Kassandra finds the opportunity to express herself completely: she clearly sees what will happen to Agamemnon and herself in the Mykene palace, that they will be killed by the hands of Clytemnestra, she cries, screams, laments, but as she cannot prevent anything, this destruction, death. cannot prevent it. When she realizes this, she curses the divination skill that Apollon donated.