The wisdom of the ancients

"THE poets fable that Apollo, being enamoured of Cassandra, was, by her many shifts and cunning flights, still deluded in his desire; but yet fed on with hope until such time as she had drawn from him the gift of prophesying; and having by such her dissimulation in the end attained to that which from the beginning she sought after, she at last flatly rejected his suit; who, finding himself so far engaged in his promise as that he could not by any means revoke again his rash gift, and yet inflamed with an earnest desire of revenge, highly disdaining to be made the scorn of a crafty wench, annexed a penalty to his promise, to wit, that she should ever foretell the truth, but never be believed."