Cassandra: Prophet Of The Modern World?

Who was the mythical Cassandra and why have pop stars started
singing about her? Mary and Charlotte turn sleuth and track the
elusive Trojan princess through the pages of ancient texts - from
Homer’s Iliad to Virgil’s Aeneid.  Today, Cassandra is most
famous as a prophetess who could predict the future, but was cursed
to never be believed. As a result, Troy burned and Agamemnon and
Cassandra herself were murdered. Generally, that disbelieving was
done by men. No wonder people talk of Greta Thunberg as a modern
day Cassandra, or that Taylor Swift and Florence Welch have
positioned her as a pin-up girl for misunderstood (female)
celebrities.  But, with the greatest respect to Taylor and
Florence, Mary and Charlotte think Cassandra is rather more
interesting than that. From her warnings about the Trojan Horse
right through to her very nasty end at the gates of Mycenae,
Cassandra’s story tells us about the limitations of human
communication and language more generally. That, not just because
she said ‘I told you so’, is why she stays with us, meaning
different things at different times.  @instaclassicpod for
Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email:
instantclassicspod@gmail.com Mary and Charlotte recommend some
further reading We focus on Cassandra’s role in Aeschylus’ play
Agamemnon in the moments leading up to her death (easily available
in translation in eg Penguin Classics or Oxford World’s Classics
series). Euripides’ Trojan Women (likewise easily available in
translation) takes the women who appear at the end of the Iliad –
Hecuba, Helen, Andromache and Cassandra – and asks: “What happened
to these women after Troy fell?” Lesya Ukrainka’s 1908 dramatic
poem Cassandra, translated by Nina Murray (Harvard Library of
Ukrainian Literature, 2024), a classic of Ukrainian literature now
available in English, brilliantly puts Cassandra at the centre of
her own story. A philosophically rich and very moving text. Emily
Hauser, Mythica (Doubleday, 2025; Penelope’s Bones in the USA)
explores the figure of Cassandra from “real” early Greek women
prophets to Ukrainka’s version. The rape of Cassandra at the end of
the Trojan War was a “favourite” subject for Greek artists. Try:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1824-0501-35 Or
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1873-0820-366 Or
(from the walls of Pompeii)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Ajax_drags_Cassandra_from_Palladium.jpg/960px-Ajax_drags_Cassandra_from_Palladium.jpg
Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty
Claypole  Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford Video
Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson   Learn more about
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