Oresteia Quotes

Pylades: I’ll take care of you. Orestes: It’s rotten work. Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.

Wisdom comes through suffering. Trouble, with its memories of pain, Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep, So men against their will Learn to practice moderation. Favours come to us from gods.

My will is mine...I shall not make it soft for you.

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

Incredible nervous state, trepidation beyond words: to be this much in love is to be sick (and I love to be sick).

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

In war, the first casualty is truth.

They sent forth men to battle, But no such men return; And home, to claim their welcome, Come ashes in an urn

There is no avoidance in delay.

She looked just like a painting dying to speak.

The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out. Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

PYLADES: I'll take care of you. ORESTES: It's rotten work. PYLADES: Not to me. Not if it's you.

Rumours voiced by women come to nothing.

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.

Oh, the torment bred in the race, the grinding scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear. But there is a cure in the house, and not outside it, no, not from others but from them, their bloody strife. We sing to you, dark gods beneath the earth. Now hear, you blissful powers underground -- answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them triumph now.

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

In visions of the night, like dropping rain, Descend the many memories of pain

I am a restrained person. Otherwise my heart would race past my tongue to pour out everything. Instead I mumble, I gnaw myself. I lose hope. And my mind is burning.

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

And there they ring the walls, the young, the lithe. The handsome hold the graves they won in Troy; the enemy earth rides over those who conquered.

We are slaves to the gods. Whatever gods are.

A great ox stands on my tongue.

Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him; and as he died he spattered me with the dark red and violent driven rain of bitter-savored blood to make me glad, as gardens stand among the showers of God in glory at the birthtime of the buds.

We spoil ourselves with scruples long as things go well.

Bastions of wealth are no deference for the man who treads the grand altar of Justice down and out of sight.

that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love.

I know the stars by heart, the armies of the night, and there in the lead the ones that bring us snow or the crops of summer, bring us all we have-- our great blazing kings of the sky, I know them, when they rise and when the fall . . .

You have used me strangely.

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

Sophokles is a playwright fascinated in general by people who say no, people who resist compromise, people who make stumbling blocks of themselves, like Antigone or Ajax.

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.

For many men value appearances more than reality—thus they violate what’s right. Everyone’s prepared to sigh over some suffering man, though no sorrow really eats their hearts, or they can pretend to join another person’s happiness forcing their faces into smiling masks. But a good man discerns true character— he’s not fooled by eyes feigning loyalty, favouring him with watered-down respect.

Yet again, isn’t there something terrible in randomness—the idea that at the very bottom of its calculations, real depravity has no master plan of any kind, it’s just a dreamy whim that slides out of people when they are trapped or bored or too lazy to analyze their own mania.

By the sword you did your work, and by the sword you die.

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.

Every medicine is vain.

For many among men are they who set high the show of honor, yet break justice.

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.

Learning comes through pain.

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

We should know what is true before we break our rage.

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.

For Ares, lord of strife, Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold, War’s money-changer, giving dust for gold, Sends back, to hearts that held them dear, Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear, Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul; Yea, fills the light urn full With what survived the flame— Death’s dusty measure of a hero’s frame!

At home there tarries like a lurking snake, Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled, A wily watcher, passionate to slake, In blood, resentment for a murdered child.

Who acts, shall endure. So speaks the voice of the age-old wisdom.

Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and death enable one to attain the truth.

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?

Here he lies like something melting away. His mother’s blood comes quaking howling brassing bawling blacking down his mad little veins.

I entered into this darkness where, ever since, I plunge deeper every hour and lose myself a little more.

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.

Time brings all things to pass.

My heart's a dance of fear.

[. . .] we suffer and we learn. And we will know the future when it comes. Greet it too early, weep too soon. It all comes clear in the light of day.

Look - can't you see? The more you kick against the pricks, the more you suffer.

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

No man can go through life and reach the end unharmed. Aye, trouble is now, and trouble still to come.

From now on, every ghost who enters the world of the dead will have to come with a story, the story of his or her life, and tell it to the harpies. It doesn't have to be a big adventure; it can just be a description of a day playing with the children, like Lyra's, or whatever it might happen to be. In exchange for this true story, the harpies will lead that ghost outside to dissolve into the Universe and be one with everything else. Of course, I stole that, as I stole everything else! I stole that from the Oresteia -- the bargain Aeschylus's characters make with the Furies that are following them about. "You will be the guardians of this place, and we will worship you and we will give you honor," they say. Then the Furies are satisfied, and they leave off their pursuit of Orestes. There's nothing new in stories. It goes round again and again and again. But that was something that I thought was a good way out for Lyra, and it did reassert the value of story. States it fully and clearly, brings it out. And also the value of realistic story. It's got to be true. And there's a moral consequence; for those who have eyes to see, they can see it: you have to live. You have to experience things to have a story to tell, and if you spend all your life playing video games, that will not do.

that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again and we resist.

Let me attain no envied wealth, let me not plunder cities, neither be taken in turn, and face life in the power of another.

Here I am. Look no furter. No one loves you more than I.

Death is a softer thing by far than tyranny.

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

Man must suffer to be wise. Head-winds heavy with past iol Stray his course and cooud 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.

[. . .] radiant dreams are passing in the night, the memories throb with sorrow, joy with pain . . . it is pain to dream and see desires slip through the arms, a vision lost for ever winging down the moving drifts of sleep.

We call on the gods, and the gods well know what storms torment us, sailors whirled to nothing. But if we are to live and reach the haven, one small seed could grow a mighty tree -

A curse burns bright on crime.

Old men are always young enough to learn, with profit.

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

Shameless self-willed infatuation Emboldens men to dare damnation, And starts the wheels of doom which roll Relentless to their piteous goal.

Cry Sorrow, sorrow--yet let good prevail.

I already knew this immense tenderness, which is only the last degree of sorrow… I knew then, already, that the intimacy of things is death.

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

I have not need to promise what I cannot do.

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.

and life beats on, and we nurse our lives with tears, to the sound of ripping linen beat our robes in sorrow, close to the breast the beats throb and laughter's gone and fortune throbs and throbs.

The truth has to be melted out of our stubborn lives By suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, Nothing tells us how things really are, Nothing forces us to know What we do not what to know Except pain. And this is how the gods declare their love. Truth comes with pain.

These moments of intoxication, when we defy everything, when, the anchor raised, we go merrily toward the abyss, with no more thought for the inevitable fall than for the limits given in the beginning, are the only ones when we are completely free of the ground (of laws) … Nothing exists that doesn’t have this senseless sense - common to flames, dreams, uncontrollable laughter - in those moments when consumption accelerates, beyond the desire to endure. Even utter senselessness ultimately is always this sense made of the negation of all the others. (Isn’t this sense basically that of each particular being who, as such, is the senselessness of all the others, but only if he doesn’t care a damn about enduring - and thought (philosophy) is at the limit of this conflagration, like a candle blown out at the limit of a flame.)

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

Let there be less suffering . . . give us the sense to live on what we need.

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

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.

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.

But whenever I take to my restless dreamless dewdrenched bed I cannot close my eyes – fear stands over me instead of sleep. And whenever I think to sing or hum a tune to stay awake then my tears fall. This house is in trouble. The good days are gone. How I pray for a change! A happy change! A light in darkness.

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.

Poetry reveals a power of the unknown. But the unknown is only an insignificant void if it is not the object of a desire. Poetry is a middle term, it conceals the known within the unknown: it is the unknown painted in blinding colors, in the image of a sun.

What mortal else who hears shall claim he was born immune to the demon of harm?

I shall select judges of manslaughter, and swear them in, establish a court into all time to come. 485 Litigants, call your witnesses, have ready your proofs as evidence under bond to keep this case secure. I will pick the finest of my citizens, and come back. They shall swear to make no judgment that is not just, and make clear where in this action the truth lies.