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Famous Aeschylus Quotes
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".
Misattributed
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)
“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 378; compare: "Apt words have power to suage / The tumours of a troubl'd mind", John Milton, Samson Agonistes.
Variant translations:
Zeus has led us on to know,
the Helmsman lays it down as law
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.
Robert Fagles, The Oresteia (1975)
God, whose law it is
that he who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
and in our own despite, against our will,
comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (1930), pp. 61 and 194 ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=D3QwvF3GWOkC&lpg=PA61&ots=BacvHvGm6e&dq=%22And%20in%20our%20own%20despite%2C%20against%20our%20will%2C%20Comes%20wisdom%22%20-kennedy&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q=%22our%20own%20despite%22&f=false)
Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. His version http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
Variant translations of πάθει μάθος:
By suffering comes wisdom.
The reward of suffering is experience.
Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 176–183, as translated by Ian Johnston ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=qz1HpBZ1fTwC&lpg=PA13&ots=C7aohrZRF1&dq=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep%2C&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep,&f=false)
Aeschylus Quotes about God
Guard well and reverence that form of government Which will eschew alike licence and slavery; Guard well and reverence that form of government Which will eschew alike licence and slavery; And from your polity do not wholly banish fear. For what man living, freed from fear, will still be just? Hold fast such upright fear of the law’s sanctity,
Source: Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 ( Google Books https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuRiOESBVjkC) source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 526–530 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Aeschylus / Quotes / Oresteia (458 BC) / Eumenides
“God's mouth knows not how to speak falsehood, but he brings to pass every word.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 1032–1033
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 309–310 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 226–229 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
opening lines
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.”
Variant translation: Success is man's god.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 59
Aeschylus Quotes about men
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 818–820 (tr. S. G. Benardete)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 600–601 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 832–833
“Old men are always young enough to learn.”
Variant translation: Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 584 ( line 583 of Richmond Lattimore's translation http://books.google.com/books?id=3duN7nP3OQYC&q=%22old+men+are+always+young+enough+to+learn%22&pg=PA40#v=onepage)
Aeschylus: Trending quotes
“On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 1089
Context: On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
“Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 103
Aeschylus Quotes
“Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 328–329 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“The will of Zeus,
The hand of his Hephæstus.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 619 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“The guardian of poor suffering mankind.”
Source: The Suppliants, lines 382–383 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“Arrogance in full bloom bears a crop of ruinous folly from which it reaps a harvest all of tears.”
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 821–822 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“Chorus of Furies: Living, you will be my feast, not slain at an altar”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 305 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“Thou shalt learn,
Late though it be, the lesson to be wise.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1425 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Repute of justice, not just act, thou wishest.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 430 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.”
trans. https://archive.org/stream/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp#page/n38/mode/1up Gilbert Murray
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 592; compare: esse quam videri.
“Innumerable twinkling of the waves of the sea.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 89
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 50 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“May Morning, as the proverb runs, appear
Bearing glad tidings from his mother Night!”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 264–265 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 505–506 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 432 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1343
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 485–487 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 35 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Source: The Suppliants, lines 446–447 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“Mankind's troubles flicker about, and you'll nowhere see misery fly on the same wings.”
Source: The Suppliants, lines 328–329 (tr. Christopher Collard)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 276–278 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“Gain upon gain, and interest to boot!”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 437 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 322–323 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“No boaster he,
But with a hand which sees the thing to do.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 554 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“But when a man
speeds toward his own ruin,
a god gives him help.”
Source: The Persians (472 BC), line 742 (tr. Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington)
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 953–954 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“The man who does ill, ill must suffer too.”
Fragment 267 https://books.google.com/books?id=OxlHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA233&dq=%22The+man+who+does+ill,+ill+must+suffer+too.%22 (trans. by Plumptre)
“For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 312
“God on high
Looks graciously on him whom triumph's hour
Has made not pitiless.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 951–952 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
Fragment 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 683–685 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship”
ἐν παντὶ πράγει δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁμιλίας κακῆς
κάκιον οὐδέν
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 599–600 (tr. David Grene)
“I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
To others, nought remember nor discern.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 38–39 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“The field of Sin
Brings forth the fruits of Death.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 601 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“Time waxing old can many a lesson teach.”
Variant translations:
Time brings all things to pass.
Time as he grows old teaches all things.
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 981 (tr. E. H. Plumptre).
“Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.”
Fragment 384, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 68–71 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“Too true it is! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1331–1332 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 834–837
“Dangerous is a people's voice charged with wrath.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 456 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“While from inward health doth flow,
Beloved of all, true bliss which mortals seek.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 535–537 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“Life envy-free is life unenviable.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 939 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 637–639 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.”
κρεῖσσον γὰρ εἰσάπαξ θανεῖν
ἢ τὰς ἁπάσας ἡμέρας πάσχειν κακῶς.
Variant translation by John Stuart Blackie (1850):
"Life and life's sorrows? Once to die is better
Than thus to drag sick life."
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 750–751
“For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.”
Variant translation: In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end
This poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 224–225
“Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1485
“"Reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.”
Source: The Suppliants, line 707; alternately reported with "Honour thy father and thy mother" in place of "Reverence for parents", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 273–275 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Fragment 250 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Φιλεῖ δὲ τίκτειν Ὕβρις
μὲν παλαιὰ νεά-
ζουσαν ἐν κακοῖς βροτῶν
Ὕβριν τότ' ἢ τόθ', ὅτε τὸ κύριον μόλῃ.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 763–766 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
