Quotes from The Oresteia

Quotations follow the Robert Fagles translation (Penguin Classics, 1979) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart.

2. 3

   Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that wisdom comes by suffering.

3. 4

   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 want to know except pain.

4. 5

   As fishermen cast their huge circling nets, I spread a deadly abundance of rich robes and caught him fast. I struck him twice.

5. 6

   I say the dead have power, and the slain are killing the killer in long after-time.

6. 7

   For the rest I stay silent; a great ox stands upon my tongue.

7. 8

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

8. 9

   Neither anarchy nor tyranny — this I counsel my citizens to support and respect, and not to drive fear wholly out of the city.

9. 10

   Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! For you have destroyed me — and utterly — this second time.

10. 11

    Hear now this law, you people of Attica, as you judge the first trial for bloodshed.

11. 12

    Wait, my son! Have pity, child, upon this breast at which many times while you slept you sucked with toothless gums the milk that nourished you.

12. 13

    But an old Hubris tends to bring forth in evil men, sooner or later, a young Hubris.

13. 14

    For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done it to suffer.

14. 15

    Pylades, what shall I do? Shall I spare my mother out of pity?

15. 16

    What then will become in the future of Loxias' oracles declared at Pytho, and of our sworn pact? Count all men your enemies rather than the gods.

16. 17

    Release from this weary task of mine has been my plea to the gods throughout this long year's watch.

17. 18

    No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.