Greek dramatist (525 B.C.-456 B.C.)
You'll see all other mortal sinners, the ones who flout the honor owed to gods or guests, or loving parents--you'll see them get the justice they deserve. For Hades holds men mightily to a strict accounting down below the earth; he sees all things, inscribes them within the book of his remembering.
AESCHYLUS
Eumenides
Time cleanses what it touches over time.
AESCHYLUS
Eumenides
For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
If a man should wanton walk with crime ... he shall find in death no great deliverance.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Death is preferable -- it is a milder fate than tyranny.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
The cure is in the house, not brought by other hands from distant places, but by its own, in agony and blood.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
To him that toileth God oweth glory, child of his toil.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
For in the voyage of the heart, there is a freight of hatred, and the wind of wrath blows shrill.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
The gods at will can shape a gladder strain, and from the lamentations at the graveside, a song of triumph may arise.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
Wisdom to learn is e'en for old men good.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
For this our task hath Fate spun without fail to last for ever sure, that we on man weighed down with deeds of hate should follow till the earth his life immure. Nor when he dies can he boast of being truly free.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
Whoever is just willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be utterly destroyed.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
Ares ever loves to pluck all the fairest flower of an armed host.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Europe
Old men are always young enough to learn.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Too credulous a woman's longing flies
And spreading swiftly, swiftly dies.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
What house
would ask for Vengeance
to perch heavy,
defiling the rafters like some bird of ill omen?
AESCHYLUS
The Suppliants
For, alone of gods, Death loves not gifts; no, not by sacrifice, nor by libation, canst thou aught avail with him; he hath no altar nor hath he hymn of praise; from him, alone of gods, Persuasion stands aloof.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Niobe