Editing Cassandra (section)

===Gift of prophecy===
Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed. Many versions of the myth relate that she incurred the god's wrath by refusing him sexual favours after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy. In Aeschylus' ''Agamemnon'', she bemoans her relationship with Apollo:
<blockquote><poem>Apollo, Apollo!
God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,
Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!</poem></blockquote>

And she acknowledges her fault:
<blockquote><poem>I consented [marriage] to Loxias [Apollo] but broke my word. ... Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.<ref>[[Aeschylus]], [[Agamemnon (play)|''Agamemnon'']] [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0085.tlg005.perseus-eng1:1202-1241 1208&ndash;1212].</ref></poem></blockquote>

Latin author [[Fabulae|Hyginus]] in [[Fabulae]] says:<ref name="Cassandra at Stanford">{{cite web | url=http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/cassandra.html | title=Cassandra | work=Mortal Women of the Trojan War | publisher=Stanford University | access-date=March 24, 2014 | archive-date=November 7, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107131205/http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/cassandra.html | url-status=live }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen, in the temple of Apollo, exhausted from practising, is said to have fallen asleep; whom, when Apollo wished to embrace her, she did not afford the opportunity of her body. On account of which thing, when she prophesied true things, she was not believed.}}

[[Louise Bogan]], an American poet, writes that another way Cassandra, as well as her twin brother Helenus, had earned their prophetic powers: "''she and her brother Helenus were left overnight in the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo. No reason has been advanced for this night in the temple; perhaps it was a ritual routinely performed by everyone. When their parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with serpents, which flicked their tongues into the children's ears. This enabled Cassandra and Helenus to divine the future.''" It would not be until Cassandra is much older that Apollo appears in the same temple and tried to seduce Cassandra, who rejects his advances, and curses her by making her prophecies not be believed.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web|last=Bogan|first=Louise|title=Cassandra in the Classical World|url=http://maps-legacy.org/poets/a_f/bogan/classical.htm|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-28|website=maps-legacy.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211128004209/http://maps-legacy.org/poets/a_f/bogan/classical.htm |archive-date=2021-11-28 }}</ref>

Her cursed gift from Apollo became an endless pain and frustration to her. She was seen as a liar and a madwoman by her family and by the Trojan people. Because of this, her father, Priam, had locked her away in a chamber and guarded her like the madwoman she was believed to be.<ref name=":02" />  Though Cassandra made many predictions that went unbelieved, the one prophecy that was believed was that of Paris being her abandoned brother.<ref name="Cassandra">{{Cite web|title=Cassandra|url=http://www.maicar.com/GML/Cassandra.html|url-status=live|access-date=November 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070218172455/http://www.maicar.com:80/GML/Cassandra.html |archive-date=2007-02-18 }}</ref>[[File:Ajax drags Cassandra from Palladium.jpg|thumb|[[Menelaus]] captures [[Helen of Troy|Helen]] in Troy, [[Ajax the Lesser]] drags Cassandra from [[Palladium (classical antiquity)|Palladium]] before eyes of [[Priam]], Roman mural from the [[Casa del Menandro]], [[Pompeii]]]]