Eumenides Quotes

Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right. [...] I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live.

They came back To widows, To fatherless children, To screams, to sobbing. The men came back As little clay jars Full of sharp cinders.

Pour everything out for the blood you have shed, you're wasting your time in appeasing the dead.

A great ox stands on my tongue.

We spoil ourselves with scruples long as things go well.

Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out; and that is far the most unhappy thing of all. -Cassandra

ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. (...) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice.

FURIES: Over the beast doomed to the fire this is the chant, scatter of wits, frenzy and fear, hurting the heart, song of the Furies binding brain and blighting blood in its stringless melody.

Learning comes through pain.

Neither the life of anarchy nor the life enslaved by tyrants, no, worship neither. Strike the balance all in all and god will give you power.

CHORUS: Helen! wild mad Helen you murdered so many beneath Troy. Now you’ve crowned yourself one final perfect time, a crown of blood that will not wash away. Strife walks with you everywhere you go. KLYTAIMESTRA: Oh, stop whining. And why get angry at Helen? As if she singlehandedly destroyed those multitudes of men. As if she all alone made this wound in us

You patronize me like some little woman with no mind to call her own. I speak with heart devoid of fear to those with wit to understand, and you can praise me or condemn me as you like, it's all the same to me.

Pain both ways and what is worse?

Horror gives place to wonder at your true account; The rest outstrips our comprehension; we give up.

Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man fortunate.

But to speak ill of people at hand who give no cause for blame, is to assume a right far distinct from justice.

My heart's a dance of fear.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls. There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

Give me an answer which is plain to understand.

I will speak in defense of reason: for the very child of vanity is violence.

No mortal can complete his life unharmed and unpunished throughout--ah ah! Some troubles are here now, some will come later." Chorus, Aeschylus' "Eumenides" from the Oresteia

The sleeping brain has eyes that give us light; we can never see our destiny by day.

لا توافق على العيش في ظل الفوضى، ولا في ظل الاستبداد

I have not need to promise what I cannot do.

I am in a strange state of mind. I am alone—quite alone—in the world—the blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happy—joyous.—I feel my pulse; it beats fast: I place my thin hand on my cheek; it burns: there is a slight, quick spirit within me which is now emitting its last sparks. I shall never see the snows of another winter—I do believe that I shall never again feel the vivifying warmth of another summer sun; and it is in this persuasion that I begin to write my tragic history. Perhaps a history such as mine had better die with me, but a feeling that I cannot define leads me on and I am too weak both in body and mind to resist the slightest impulse. While life was strong within me I thought indeed that there was a sacred horror in my tale that rendered it unfit for utterance, and now about to die I pollute its mystic terrors. It is as the wood of the Eumenides none but the dying may enter; and Oedipus is about to die.

لا يمكن أن يقال إنه لا يحق للمرء أن يأخذ العدالة بيده، كما يقال في هذه الأيام، لأن العدالة إما أن تطبق على جميع الجرائم، أو لاتطبق أبدا . وفي هذه الحالة الأخيرة يحق لمن وقع عليه الأذى أن يأخذ العدالة بيده فيقابل الشر بالشر دون أن يسرف

In Eumenides, Apollo, chosen to represent Orestes in his murder trial, mounts a strikingly original argument: he reasons that Orestes’s mother is no more than a stranger to him. A pregnant woman is just a glorified human incubator, Apollo argues, an intravenous bag dripping nutrients through the umbilical cord into her child.

I have suffered into truth (...) Time refines all things that age with time

Neither anarchy, nor tyranny, my people. Worship the Mean, I urge you, shore it up with reverence and never banish terror from the gates, not outright.

ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right.

إن من التقوى مجازاة الجريمة بالجريمة

أيها الملك أنت تعلم ما معنى العدل، ومن ثم تعلم أيضا أن تكون يقظا. إن قوتك ضمان لإحسانك

التوبيخات هي حوافز الحكيم

I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

ROSS I hear a kind of … rushing sound, like a … wooooosh!, or … wings, or something. MARTIN It’s probably the Eumenides.

Zeus, whose will has marked for man The sole way where wisdom lies; Ordered one eternal plan: Man must suffer to be wise. Head-winds heavy with past ill Stray his course and cloud his heart: Sorrow takes the blind soul's part - Man grows wise against his will. For powers who rule from thrones above By ruthlessness commend their love.

When you are actually in America, America hurts, because it has a powerful disintegrative influence upon the white psyche. It is full of grinning, unappeased aboriginal demons, too, ghosts, and it persecutes the white men like some Eumenides, until the white men give up their absolute whiteness. America is tense with latent violence and resistance. The very common-sense of white Americans has a tinge of helplessness in it, and deep fear of what might be if they were not common-sensical.

Long before the dread monotheists got their hands on history’s neck, we had been taught how to handle feuds by none other than the god Apollo as dramatized by Aeschylus in Eumenides (a polite Greek term for the Furies who keep us daily company on CNN). Orestes, for the sin of matricide, cannot rid himself of the Furies who hound him wherever he goes. He appeals to the god Apollo who tells him to go to the UN—also known as the citizens’ assembly at Athens—which he does and is acquitted on the ground that blood feuds must be ended or they will smolder forever, generation after generation, and great towers shall turn to flame and incinerate us all until “the thirsty dust shall never more suck up the darkly steaming blood ... and vengeance crying death for death! But man with man and state with state shall vow the pledge of common hate and common friendship, that for man has oft made blessing out of ban, be ours until all time.” Let Annan mediate between East and West before there is nothing left of either of us to salvage.

Recuérdalo: que el terror no domine tu mente.

Quando dorme la mente scintilla di mille occhi

Time refines all things that age with time.

შინ და გარეთ დამკვიდრდა სევდა.

ვაჰმე, რად მტანჯავს შიშის აჩრდლი და გულზე მაწევს ვით მაჯლაჯუნა? რად აღარ ძალმიძს გავხსნა ხვანჯი დაბურულ სიზმრის?

არა! მოგაშთობთ, სანამ ჩემი დამდგარა ჯერი. უფსკრულში ჯერ თქვენ გადაგიშვებთ, მერმე მოგყვებით

თუმცა მსახურებს ეჩვენება მწუხრე სახით, მაინც თვალები დედოფლისა ამხელს სიხარულს.

დახეთ, პაწია ბიჭუნები კარებთან წვანან, თითქოს, ძილფხიზლად გადასულან უღრან სიზმრებში

მიუჯდა სუფრას, მსუყე ნაჭრებს შეახო პირი, და სასაფლაოს საჭამანდი იყნოსა უცბად..

მაგრამ ეს მოხდა უცხო ქალისთვის”- დასძენენ ასე ჩუმი ვედრებით და შურისგების ქვეწარმავალი მიცოცავს ნელა ატიდთა კვალზე.

აღსასრულის წინათგრძნობა გულში ფხაჭუნობს.

და მათივ ხორცით ილუკმება მშობელი მამა

რა ამოწურავს მამრის ზვაობას დიაცის ვნებას დაუოკებელს.

დავმდგარვარ შტერად მემღვრევა აზრი რას მოვეჭიდო, უფსკრულისკენ მიქანავს სახლი.

და ახლა სიცხე.. ზღვა ჩამკვდარი და მოქანცული თვლემდა უძრავად, ჩაძირული შუადღის ხვატში

და მზე რაჟამსაც ამოვიდა, ჩვენ დავინახეთ, ეგეოსის ზღვა, მოცინარე, გადაცხედრილი.

..განესტილი იატაკი მოყვასის სისხლით.

ტანჯვის ციხეა სხეული ჩემი

..ბავშვთა დამკვლელის სისხლში სცურავს პირმოთხუპნული.

რაჟამს ინათებს, აღმოსავლით დაჰბერავს ქარი, გაეკიდება ტალღა ტალღას მზისკენ მორბედი..

ვაგლახ! ამჟამად ყრუ სიბნელეში ფართხალებს გული, თავისსავე უძლურებას აწყდება იგი, დაფეთებული.

What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?

Time in his aging overtakes all things alike.

Man shall learn from man's lot.

If bright water you stain with mud, you nevermore will find it fit to drink.

Now, by the altar, Over the victim Ripe for our ritual, Sing this enchantment: A song without music, A sword in the senses, A storm in the heart And a fire in the brain; A clamour of Furies To paralyse reason, A tune full of terror, A drought in the soul!

He who blasphemes the individual (i.e., blasphemes me as an individual self) shuts himself out only from me, not from love; but he who sunders himself from God blasphemes nature itself, blasphemes the spirit in nature; his spirit has destroyed its own holiness, and he is therefore incapable of annulling his separation and reuniting himself with love, with holiness. By a sign ye could be shaken, but that would not restore in you the nature ye have lost. The Eumenides of your being could be terrified, but the void left in you by the Daemons thus chased away would not be filled by love. It will only draw your furies back again, and, now strengthened by your very consciousness that they are furies of hell, they complete your destruction.

U muzeju stakla videli smo rimska filigranska stakla, pa neka rana vizantijska i sirijska, pa jasna renesansna, pa flaše u obliku konja i miševa, posude na lomljivom federu, osamnaestovekovna ogledala i lustere. Duvač je pred nama iz crvenog embriona naduvao bokal i vatrenog konja. Duvač je škljocao zlokobnim makazama. Gledali smo kako se prah topi i kristalizuje i kako se pesak hemijski pretvara u providnu tvrdu tečnost. Gledali smo rimske suzne bočice. Ko je toliko plakao ? Uvek sam verovao u vezu stakla i civilizacije. Furije su furije ali se moramo praviti da su Eumenide. Ima mnogo stakla na civilizovanim mestima. Krhka je civilizacija. Na tu pomisao, duša mi je izbutra postala sva staklena i pomislio sam : - Kako je čudno živeti u telu.

Nothing could have been less in line with contemporary conceptions of art than that the theatre should be divorced from all relation to life and politics. Greek tragedy was in the strictest sense ‘political drama’; the finale of Eumenides, with its fervent prayers for the prosperity of the Attic state, betrays the main purpose of the piece. This political control of the theatre brought back to currency the old view that the poet is guardian of a higher truth and an educator who leads his people up to a higher plane of humanity. Through the performance of tragedies on the state-ordained festivals and the circumstances that tragedy came to be looked upon as the authoritative interpretation of the national myths, the poet once more attains to a position almost equivalent to that of the priestly seer of prehistoric times.

Jesus also contrasts individuality with the spirit of the whole. Whoever (Matthew xii. 31 ff.) blasphemes a man (blasphemes me as the son of man), this sin shall be forgiven him. But whoso blasphemes the spirit itself, the divine, his sin shall not be forgiven either in this time or in the time to come. Out of the abundance of the heart (verse 34) the mouth speaketh; out of the treasure of a good spirit the good man bringeth forth good things, out of the evil spirit the evil man bringeth forth evil. He who blasphemes the individual (i.e., blasphemes me as an individual self) shuts himself out only from me, not from love; but he who sunders himself from God blasphemes nature itself, blasphemes the spirit in nature; his spirit has destroyed its own holiness, and he is therefore incapable of annulling his separation and reuniting himself with love, with holiness. By a sign ye could be shaken, but that would not restore in you the nature ye have lost. The Eumenides of your being could be terrified, but the void left in you by the Daemons thus chased away would not be filled by love. It will only draw your furies back again, and, now strengthened by your very consciousness that they are furies of hell, they complete your destruction.

Sometimes what-if fantasies are useful. Imagine that the entirety of Western civilisation’s coding for computer systems or prints of all films ever made or all copies of Shakespeare and the Bible and the Qur’an were encrypted and held on one tablet device. And if that tablet was lost, stolen, burnt or corrupted, then our knowledge, use and understanding of that content, those words and ideas, would be gone for ever – only, perhaps, lingering in the minds of a very few men of memory whose job it had been to keep ideas alive. This little thought-experiment can help us to comprehend the totemic power of manuscripts. This is the great weight of responsibility for the past, the present and the future that the manuscripts of Constantinople carried. Much of our global cultural heritage – philosophies, dramas, epic poems – survive only because they were preserved in the city’s libraries and scriptoria. Just as Alexandria and Pergamon too had amassed vast libraries, Constantinople understood that a physical accumulation of knowledge worked as a lode-stone – drawing in respect, talent and sheer awe. These texts contained both the possibilities and the fact of empire and had a quasi-magical status. This was a time when the written word was considered so potent – and so precious – that documents were thought to be objects with spiritual significance. (...) It was in Constantinople that the book review was invented. Scholars seem to have had access to books within a proto-lending-library system, and there were substantial libraries within the city walls. Thanks to Constantinople, we have the oldest complete manuscript of the Iliad, Aeschylus’ dramas Agamemnon and Eumenides, and the works of Sophocles and Pindar. Fascinating scholia in the margins correct and improve: plucking work from the page ‘useful for the reader . . . not just the learned’, as one Byzantine scholar put it. These were texts that were turned into manuals for contemporary living.

Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace -blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea, and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe a wash of sunlight streaming through the land, and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood our city's life with power and never flag with time. Make the seed of men live on, the more they worship you the more they thrive. I love them as a gardener loves his plants, these upright men, this breed fought free of grief. All that is yours to give. And I, in the trials of war where fighters burn for fame, will never endure the overthrow of Athens all will praise her, victor city, pride of man. The furies assemble, dancing around Athena, who becomes their leader.

Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea, and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe a wash of sunlight streaming through the land, and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood our city's life with power and never flag with time. Make the seed of men live on, the more they worship you the more they thrive. I love them as a gardener loves his plants, these upright men, this breed fought free of grief. All that is yours to give. And I, in the trials of war where fighters burn for fame, will never endure the overthrow of Athens all will praise her, victor city, pride of man. The furies assemble, dancing around Athena, who becomes their leader.

Athena, the goddess of wisdom, transforms the Furies from persecuting monsters into Eumenides (kindly ones) by including rather than banishing them.

There is no reason why Kassandra should speak Greek. She is a Trojan princess who has never been away from home before. In fact, she will turn out to command all registers of this alien tongue--analytical, metaphoric, historical, prophetic, punning, riddling, plain as glass. But Apollo has cursed Kassandra. Her mind is foreign in a much deeper way.

My thoughts, Eumenides, are stitched to the stars, which being as high as I can see, thou may'st imagine how much higher they are than I can reach.