Forthright

Rolf Winquist
Portrait of Eva Marie Brandt
1950
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Édouard Chantalat
Portrait of poet Paul Verlaine
1898
oil on canvas
Musée de la Cour d'Or de Metz

Marianne Wiig Storaas
Portrait of politician Karen Platou
2022
oil on canvas
Stortingets Kunstsamling, Oslo

Józef Grassi
Portrait of the Marquis de Llano,
Spanish Envoy in Vienna
1790
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Judy Dater
Portrait of art historian and curator Peter Bunnell
1977
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Émile Friant
Self Portrait
1887
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy

Isaac Grünewald
Self Portrait
ca. 1915
oil on panel
Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

Maarten van Heemskerck
Portrait of Machtelt Suijs
ca. 1545
oil on panel
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Gerhard Henning
Self Portrait
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Jan Jordens
Self Portrait
1920
woodcut
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Oskar Kokoschka
Portrait of Elisabeth Reitler
1909
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of Jean Pupil de Craponne
1708
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Siri Meyer
Self Portrait
ca. 1965
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Duisburg merchant Dirck Tybis
1533
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

John Singer Sargent
Portrait of the Honourable Clare Stuart Wortley
1923
drawing
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Charley Toorop
Self Portrait
1953-54
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Chorus:  Woman unfortunate in so many ways and also wise in so many ways, you have spoken at length; but if you truly have foreknowledge of your own death, how comes it that you are walking boldly towards it like an ox driven by god to the altar?

Cassandra:  There is no escape, friends, none, for any longer time.  

Chorus:  But people put special value on the last bit of time they have.

Cassandra:  That day has come.  I shall gain little by running away.

Chorus:  Well, I tell you, your resolution comes from a courageous heart.

Cassandra:  That's something that's never said about anyone who is happy.

Chorus:  But it's a gratification to any mortal, you know, to die creditably.

Cassandra:  Ió, my father, for you and your noble sons!  Now I shall go to bewail, even within the house, my own fate and Agamemnon's.  Enough of life!  [She makes to go inside, but suddenly recoils and cries out.]  Help, friends!

Chorus:  What's the matter?  What fear is making you turn away?

Cassandra:  Ugh, ugh!

Chorus:  Why are you going "ugh" like that?  Unless it's some mental horror.

Cassandra:  The house breathes blood-dripping murder!

Chorus:  What on earth do you mean?  That's the smell of sacrifices at the hearth.

Cassandra:  The scent is very plain – just like the whiff of a grave!

Chorus:  You can't be talking about the Syrian fragrance which is adding splendour to the palace!

Cassandra:  I am not shying away out of empty terror, as a bird does from a bush.  Bear me witness of this after my death, when a woman dies in return for me, a woman, and a man falls in return for a man who had an evil wife.  As one about to die, I claim this as my guest-right.

Chorus:  Unhappy one, I pity you for the death you have foretold.

Cassandra:  I wish to make one more speech – or should I say dirge, my own dirge for myself.  Looking on my last sunlight, I pray that my enemies may pay to my master's avengers the penalty for my murder as well – for the death of a slave, an easy victim.  Alas for the fortunes of mortals!  When they prosper, one may liken them to a shadow, and if things go badly, a few strokes of a damp sponge wipe their image out.  And I pity the latter much more than the former.  [She goes inside.]

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)