The myth of Cassandra: when no one listens to women

Cassandra was the daughter of Hecuba and Priam, king of Troy. Her beauty was so dazzling that Apollo, the sun god, offered to give her the gift of prophecy if she became his lover. Kassandra agreed, tempted to learn her future, but when Apollo tried to collect the reward from her she refused to fulfill her part of the deal.

Angry by the rejection and deeply offended by the deception, Apollo reacted in a way that is quite common among Olympians: he thought of an exemplary punishment, something that would allow him to heal his self-esteem but that would in no way compromise his pledged word.

Apollo kept his end of the deal. He gave Cassandra the gift of predicting the future, of knowing in advance every episode, every death, every victory, of anticipating even the most captivating visions of the prophets. And along with this gift the god added a brief but devastating curse: no one, absolutely no one would believe him.

It was thus that Cassandra knew the future, and tried to warn her father about the Achaean armies, Achilles, Odysseus, and the stratagems of the deceitful Greeks. However, she quickly discovered that knowing the future is of no use if no one is able to believe her.

The myth of Cassandra was immortalized in the Iliad, but continued unaltered through the centuries, until the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard used it to coin a very curious theory: the Cassandra complex.

In 1963, psychologist Melanie Klein made a beautiful interpretation of the Cassandra myth. There she maintains that the Trojan princess represents human morality, that portion of ourselves that knows the dangers of undertaking certain acts, but is rarely listened to in time.

In a way, Cassandra is the moral conscience of Troy, ignored and ridiculed for excessive self-confidence.

Kassandra’s function is to point out the dangers of the future, that is, what will happen if certain rules and conventions are violated, and the subsequent social disaster that occurs after the violation. Destruction comes from the Ego, represented in myth by the god Apollo.

Melanie Klein tightens the screw a little more and reasons that Kassandra’s punishment is one of the most elegant in all of Greek mythology. Apollo does not silence her, on the contrary, he grants her divine knowledge about all future events, but prevents others from paying attention to her.

Psychologically speaking, we can think that the moral nature of some predictions, that is, the certainty that some acts, although joyful at first, can trigger something negative in the future, is denied and repressed by the Ego, whose tendency is to satisfy its desires for immediately, without calculating future risks.

Paradoxically, the Self is not unaware of this future, that is, it does not believe that Cassandra’s prophecies are inaccurate; on the contrary, it knows that they are rigorously true but decides to ignore them.

Jungian psychologist Laurie Layton Schapira also studied in depth the factors that make up the Cassandra complex. We all, she maintains, suffer from some more or less balanced degree of that “curse.” For example, the woman who KNOWS that a certain man is not suitable for her, but who prefers to ignore her instinctive predictions by sublimating her own abilities, for example, the secret hope of changing the other’s personality.

Kassandra’s end was decidedly tragic. He tried, in vain, to alert his father to the true nature of the Trojan horse and the fall of the city. During the massacre and looting, Cassandra sought refuge in the temple of Athena, where she was abducted by Ajax and then by King Agamemnon himself, who took her as a slave and concubine. Shortly afterward she was murdered by Agamemnon’s wife, and sister of the beautiful Helen, Clytemnestra.

Now, this ending raises a reasonable doubt. If Kassandra knew the future, she knew that she would not find refuge in Athena’s temple. In fact, we can think that absolute knowledge of her future would allow her to flee the city of Troy without receiving a single wound. However, she chose martyrdom, sacrifice, perhaps believing that no future looks bright for prophets who are ignored.

Ultimately, the forecast is always less important than the credibility of the prophet.

Greek mythology. I Love stories from Greek mythology.

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