there’s another story about Apollo and oracles, at least equally famous, at least equally relevant. This is the story of Cassandra, Princess of Troy. (It begins just before the Mycenaean Greeks invade Troy to start the Trojan War.) She was the smartest and the most beautiful of the daughters of King Priam. Apollo, constantly on the prowl for attractive humans (as were virtually all the Greek gods and goddesses), fell in love with her. Oddly—this almost never happens in Greek myth—she resisted his advances. So he tried to bribe her. But what could he give her? She was already a princess. She was rich and beautiful. She was happy. Still, Apollo had a thing or two to offer. He promised her the gift of prophecy. The offer was irresistible. She agreed.
Quid pro quo
. Apollo did whatever it is that gods do to create seers, oracles, and prophets out of mere mortals. But then, scandalously, Cassandra reneged. She refused the overtures of a god.
Apollo was incensed. But he couldn’t withdraw the gift of prophecy, because, after all, he was a god. (Whatever else you might say about them, gods keep their promises.) Instead, he condemned her to a cruel and ingenious fate: that no one wouldbelieve her prophecies. (What I’m recounting here is largely from Aeschylus’s play
Agamemnon
.) Cassandra prophesies to her own people the fall of Troy. Nobody pays attention. She predicts the death of the leading Greek invader, Agamemnon. Nobody pays attention. She even foresees her own early death, and still no one pays attention. They didn’t want to hear. They made fun of her. They called her—Greeks and Trojans alike—“the lady of many sorrows.” Today perhaps they would dismiss her as a “prophet of doom and gloom.”
There’s a nice moment when she can’t understand how it is that these prophecies of impending catastrophe—some of which, if believed, could be prevented—were being ignored. She says to the Greeks, “How is it you don’t understand me? Your tongue I know only too well.” But the problem wasn’t her pronunciation of Greek. The answer (I’m paraphrasing) was, “You see, it’s like this. Even the Delphic Oracle sometimes makes mistakes. Sometimes its prophecies are ambiguous. We can’t be sure. And if we can’t be sure about Delphi, we certainly can’t be sure about you.” That’s the closest she gets to a substantive response.
The story was the same with the Trojans: “I prophesied to my countrymen,” she says, “all their disasters.” But they ignored her clairvoyances and were destroyed. Soon, so was she.
The resistance to dire prophecy that Cassandra experienced can be recognized today. If we’re faced with an ominous prediction involving powerful forces that may not be readily influenced, we have a natural tendency to reject or ignore the prophecy. Mitigating or circumventing the danger might take time, effort, money, courage. It might require us to alter the priorities of our lives. And not every prediction of disaster, even among those made by scientists, is fulfilled: Most animal life in the oceans did not perish due to insecticides; despite Ethiopia and the Sahel, worldwide famine has not been a hallmark of the1980s; food production in South Asia was not drastically affected by the 1991 Kuwaiti oil well fires; supersonic transports do not threaten the ozone layer—although all these predictions had been made by serious scientists. So when faced with a new and uncomfortable prediction, we might be tempted to say: “Improbable.” “Doom and Gloom.” “We’ve never experienced anything remotely like it.” “Trying to frighten everyone.” “Bad for public morale.”
What’s more, if the factors precipitating the anticipated catastrophe are long-standing, then the prediction itself is an indirect or unspoken rebuke. Why have we, ordinary citizens, permitted this peril to develop? Shouldn’t we have informed ourselves about it earlier? Don’t we ourselves bear complicity,
Quid pro quo
. Apollo did whatever it is that gods do to create seers, oracles, and prophets out of mere mortals. But then, scandalously, Cassandra reneged. She refused the overtures of a god.
Apollo was incensed. But he couldn’t withdraw the gift of prophecy, because, after all, he was a god. (Whatever else you might say about them, gods keep their promises.) Instead, he condemned her to a cruel and ingenious fate: that no one wouldbelieve her prophecies. (What I’m recounting here is largely from Aeschylus’s play
Agamemnon
.) Cassandra prophesies to her own people the fall of Troy. Nobody pays attention. She predicts the death of the leading Greek invader, Agamemnon. Nobody pays attention. She even foresees her own early death, and still no one pays attention. They didn’t want to hear. They made fun of her. They called her—Greeks and Trojans alike—“the lady of many sorrows.” Today perhaps they would dismiss her as a “prophet of doom and gloom.”
There’s a nice moment when she can’t understand how it is that these prophecies of impending catastrophe—some of which, if believed, could be prevented—were being ignored. She says to the Greeks, “How is it you don’t understand me? Your tongue I know only too well.” But the problem wasn’t her pronunciation of Greek. The answer (I’m paraphrasing) was, “You see, it’s like this. Even the Delphic Oracle sometimes makes mistakes. Sometimes its prophecies are ambiguous. We can’t be sure. And if we can’t be sure about Delphi, we certainly can’t be sure about you.” That’s the closest she gets to a substantive response.
The story was the same with the Trojans: “I prophesied to my countrymen,” she says, “all their disasters.” But they ignored her clairvoyances and were destroyed. Soon, so was she.
The resistance to dire prophecy that Cassandra experienced can be recognized today. If we’re faced with an ominous prediction involving powerful forces that may not be readily influenced, we have a natural tendency to reject or ignore the prophecy. Mitigating or circumventing the danger might take time, effort, money, courage. It might require us to alter the priorities of our lives. And not every prediction of disaster, even among those made by scientists, is fulfilled: Most animal life in the oceans did not perish due to insecticides; despite Ethiopia and the Sahel, worldwide famine has not been a hallmark of the1980s; food production in South Asia was not drastically affected by the 1991 Kuwaiti oil well fires; supersonic transports do not threaten the ozone layer—although all these predictions had been made by serious scientists. So when faced with a new and uncomfortable prediction, we might be tempted to say: “Improbable.” “Doom and Gloom.” “We’ve never experienced anything remotely like it.” “Trying to frighten everyone.” “Bad for public morale.”
What’s more, if the factors precipitating the anticipated catastrophe are long-standing, then the prediction itself is an indirect or unspoken rebuke. Why have we, ordinary citizens, permitted this peril to develop? Shouldn’t we have informed ourselves about it earlier? Don’t we ourselves bear complicity,
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