Greek dramatist (525 B.C.-456 B.C.)
Words are the parents of a causeless wrath.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall;
There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all,
And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs,
And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
Chanting aloud in realms below
The dead are wroth;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
Some are lapped in night, where all things are undone.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray, to come to me; of cureless ills thou art the one physician. Pain lays not its touch upon a corpse.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Philoctetes
On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Nor does night conceal men's deeds of ill, but whatsoe'er thou dost, think that some God beholds it.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
And all the country echoeth with the moan,
And poureth many a tear
For that magnific power
Of ancient days far-seen that thou didst share
With those of one blood sprung;
And all the mortal men who hold the plain
Of holy Asia as their land of sojourn,
They grieve in sympathy
For thy woes lamentable.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Obedience is the mother of success, and the wife of security.
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
No one can count the terrors that the earth spawns, catastrophic, gruesome, and the vast arms of the sea swarm with brute monsters bent on harm, and everywhere between the sky and ground lights bloom by day in flares and sudden bolts; and birds and beasts alike can tell of the whirlwind's whirling wrath.
AESCHYLUS
Libation Bearers
Joy steals upon me, such joy as calls forth tears.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
The popular voice has much potency.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
When a man dies, flesh is frayed and broken in the fire, but not his will.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers
The man who does ill, ill must suffer too.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Death hath a fairer fame than a life of toil.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Ixion
Respect the altar of Justice and do not, looking to profit, dishonor it by spurning with godless foot; for punishment will come upon you.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
Thou needs must spit it out and make clean thy mouth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
The burning gaze of a young woman, such as hath tasted man, shall not escape me; for I have a spirit keen to mark these things.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Toxotides
Ask the gods nothing excessive.
AESCHYLUS
The Suppliant Women
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound