Urbandictionary.com- Who is Cassandra?

Okay, the rant on Facebook these days is to find the meaning of your name by doing a search at Urbandictionay.  So I searched for my name here are the results.  (funny and interesting)

Cassandra

The prophetess Cassandra (kuh-san-drah), also known as Alexandra, was a Trojan princess. The daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, she was also renowned as the second most beautiful woman in the world at the time, Helen being the foremost. She made many correct prophecies, such as the downfall of Troy because of Paris' abduction of Helen, but she was never believed and her visions were disregarded and ignored.
"Where are you going? You will bring conflagration back with you. How great the flames are that you are seeking over these waters, you do not know." (Cassandra to Paris. Ovid, Heroides 16,120)
There are two versions to how she received her prophetic powers. In the first, she was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo after agreeing to lie with him. She then later rejected his lustful advances so he added a curse, making it so her prophecies would never be believed. The second version states that as small children, Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus fell asleep in the temple of Apollo after a feast in honor of their birthdays. When Hecuba came looking for them, she found temple serpents (considered sacred to Apollo and symbols of prophecy and wisdom) on them that were biting their 'organs of sense', meaning the brain.

Cassandra Syndrome

1) The condition of speaking the truth and having no one believe you.
2) The condition of being able to predict the future, be it the outcome of a particular event, or the reactions of others to the same event, and having no one believe your prophecy until it transpires.
3) Being able to see or understand things long before others, often resulting in them coming to the same conclusions long after your own initial analysis.
(All definitions come from Cassandra, the queen in Greek mythology who was appointed by Apollo with an inability to lie, yet cursed by having no one believe her prophecies.)

Comments

Popular Posts