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

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

She looked just like a painting dying to speak.

There is no avoidance in delay.

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

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?

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A great ox stands on my tongue.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Time brings all things to pass.

[. . .] 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.

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.

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

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

Pain both ways and what is worse?

My heart's a dance of fear.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 Chorus of Eleusinian Initiates lead Dionysus and Aeschylus off in a torchlight procession recalling the inspirational finale of Aeschylus’ 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.

Cry Sorrow, sorrow--yet let good prevail.

A curse burns bright on crime.

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

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

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

I have not need to promise what I cannot do.

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 -

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.

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

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.)

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.

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

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.

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

التوبيخات هي حوافز الحكيم

إن من التقوى مجازاة الجريمة بالجريمة

I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

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

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.

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

ELEKTRA: Whatever dooms there are men die, whatever harms there are men have-- Godsent: they blast, we bend. (Orestes)

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.

Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of lysol. I crawl like an ant in mourning over the weedy acres of your brow to mend the immense skull-plates and clear the bald, white tumuli of your eyes. A blue sky out of Oresteia....

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.

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.

May good prevail, and justify my deed.

I approach poetry: but only to miss it.

Quando dorme la mente scintilla di mille occhi

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.

Daughter of Leda, guardian of my home, your speech was, like my absence, far too long.

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

βροτοὺς θρασύνει γὰρ αἰσχρόμητις, τάλαινα παρακοπὰ πρωτοπήμων.

Bloody footprints staggering through this palace Generation to generation.

It is tempting For the winner, who might have lost his life, To take all. And to destroy whatever cannot be taken. Let us pray they restrain themselves.

..ბავშვთა დამკვლელის სისხლში სცურავს პირმოთხუპნული.

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

რა ამოწურავს მამრის ზვაობას დიაცის ვნებას დაუოკებელს.

დავმდგარვარ შტერად მემღვრევა აზრი რას მოვეჭიდო, უფსკრულისკენ მიქანავს სახლი.

How fain I'd speak to those who know mythought, And silence keep to those who yet know nought.

შინ და გარეთ დამკვიდრდა სევდა.

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

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

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

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

აღსასრულის წინათგრძნობა გულში ფხაჭუნობს.

..განესტილი იატაკი მოყვასის სისხლით.

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

ტანჯვის ციხეა სხეული ჩემი

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

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

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

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

და მათივ ხორცით ილუკმება მშობელი მამა

Not sights! These terrors are real! The mother's curse, the hellhounds of hate, they are here!

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.

What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?

You are dreaming, children, dreams dearer than gold, more blest than the Blest beyond the North Wind's raging. Dreams are easy, oh, but the double lash is striking home.

No dreams, these torments, not to me, they're clear, real - the hounds of mother's hate.

Time refines all things that age with time.

He has opened the way of wisdom to mortals, by proclaiming as a sovereign law: By suffering comes understanding

Cry, cry for death, but good win out in glory in the end.

We’re not gods; why then expect to enjoy a lifetime of unbroken happiness?

Look at him, look how he drips unhealth—shudder object!

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.

Marvels, the Earth breeds many marvels, terrible marvels overwhelm us. The heaving arms of the sea embrace and swarm with savage life. And high in the no man's land of night torches hang like swords.

If libations were proper to pour above the slain, this man deserved, more than deserved, such sacrament. He filled our cup with evil things unspeakable and now himself come home has drunk it to the dregs.

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!

I ask the gods some respite from the weariness of this watch time measured by years I lie awake elbowed upon the Atreidae's roof dogwise to mark the grand professionals of all the stars of night burdened with winter and again with heat for men, dynasties in their shining blazoned on the air, these stairs, upon their wane and when the rest arise

Cassandra, foreseeing not the end of Troy, but the end of everything that came after Troy. The victory of Greece remains the most important victory of our history; it not only inspired the first text of Western literature but perhaps is the very text of ‘the West’ itself. This victory, prefigured in the mad rants of the woman who defied the god of truth, could not have been won if anyone had listened to Cassandra. But then again, she did not die before she took her madness into the heart of Greece: it echoed through Agamemnon’s palace, through Aeschylus’s Oresteia, continued as shout and murmur through literature. Nonetheless, the book that frames these screams is called (defiantly perhaps?) a science, and gay.

Full many are they who unjustly respect Mere semblance of truth, and all men are quick With a tear to the eye for a neighbor's distress, But with hearts Untouched by his trouble. Just so they Rejoice with him, forcing a smile Like his on their laughterless faces. Yet he that can read in the book of the eyes Man's nature, will not be diluted by looks Which fawn with dissembled fidelity, false Like wine that is mingled with water.

We are the old, dishonoured ones, the broken husks of men. Even then they cast us off, the rescue mission left us here to prop a child's strength upon a stick. What if the new sap rises in his chest? He has no soldiery in him, no more than we, and we are the aged past ageing, gloss of the leaf shrivelled, three legs at a time we falter on. Old men are children once again, a dream that sways and wavers into the hard light of day.

ELEKTRA: If this is all you were, Orestes, how could your memory fill my memory, how is it your soul fills my soul?.... Look! You are nothing at all. Just a crack where the light slipped through. Oh, my child, I thought I could save you. I thought I could send you beyond. But there is not beyond. .....somewhere, I don't know where - suddenly alone you stopped - where death was. You stopped. And I would have waited and washed you and lifted you up from the fire like a whitened coal. ....Into your child's fingers I put the earth and the sky. No mother did that for you. No nurse. No slave. I. Your sister, without letting go, day after day, year after year, and you my own sweet child. But death was a wind too strong for that. One day three people vanished. Father. You. Me. Gone. Now our enemies rock with laughter. And she runs mad for joy - that creature in the shape of your mother - how often you said you would come one secret evening and cut her throat! But our luck canceled that, whatever luck is. And instead my beloved, luck sent you back to me colder than ashes, later than shadows. ....Oh, my love, take me there. Let me dwell where you are. I am already nothing. I am already burning. Oh, my love, I was once part of you - take me too! Only void is between us. And I see that the dead feel no pain. (Elektra, by Sophocles)

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.

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.

A poet doesn’t justify-he doesn't accept-nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.

Poetic delirium has its place in nature. It justifies nature, consents to embellish it. The refusal belongs to clear consciousness, evaluating whatever occurs to it.

Poetry removes one from the night and the day at the same time. It can neither bring into question nor bring into action this world that bids me.

ELEKTRA: Apollo made us sacrificial victims in his murder exchange of father for mother. CHORUS: Justice, on the one hand. ELEKTRA: Evil, on the other. Mother, as you killed so you die. But you've ruined us all. You at least went off to be among the dead. I live on here as corpse beside Orestes' bed. Nights and tears and groaning, nothing else is mine. No marriage, no house, no children, just time. (Orestes)

I cannot not grieve.

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

And yet—farewell

Incredible nervous state, trepidation beyond words: to be this much in love is to be sick (and I love to be sick). — Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia (City Lights Books December 1, 1991)