Cassandra. Cassandra or Kassandra, was a priestess of Apollo in Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed.
In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate someone whose accurate prophecies are not believed. Cassandra was reputed to be a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy.
Her older brother was Hector, hero of the Greco-Trojan war. The older and most common versions state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her with the gift to see the future.
According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favors, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word and refused the god. The enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, so he added to it the curse that though she would see the future, nobody would believe her prophecies.
In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no promise; the powers were given to her as an enticement. When these failed to make her love him, Apollo cursed Cassandra to always be disbelieved, in spite of the truth of her words. Some later versions have her falling asleep in a temple, where the snakes licked her ears so that she could hear the future. Cassandra became a figure of epic tradition and of tragedy. Hjalmar Frisk notes unexplained etymology, citing various hypotheses found in Wilhelm Schulze, Edgar Howard Sturtevant, J. Davreux, and Albert C
In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate someone whose accurate prophecies are not believed. Cassandra was reputed to be a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy.
Her older brother was Hector, hero of the Greco-Trojan war. The older and most common versions state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her with the gift to see the future.
According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favors, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word and refused the god. The enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, so he added to it the curse that though she would see the future, nobody would believe her prophecies.
In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no promise; the powers were given to her as an enticement. When these failed to make her love him, Apollo cursed Cassandra to always be disbelieved, in spite of the truth of her words. Some later versions have her falling asleep in a temple, where the snakes licked her ears so that she could hear the future. Cassandra became a figure of epic tradition and of tragedy. Hjalmar Frisk notes unexplained etymology, citing various hypotheses found in Wilhelm Schulze, Edgar Howard Sturtevant, J. Davreux, and Albert C
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