Aeschylus (c.525–c.456 BCE) was the earliest writer of Greek tragic drama whose works survive. He is regarded as the founder of Greek tragic drama. His seven extant plays from a known 80 titles include Prometheus Bound and the Oresteia trilogy.
Aeschylus contributed considerably to the methodological development of the dramatic form and the movement away from pure ritual to the theater as we know it. He did so by introducing the concept of two actors in dialogue and by limiting the role of the choral song.
Aeschylus is best known for his trilogy, the Oresteia (458 BCE,) consisting of the tragedies Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides.
Using themes from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Oresteia tell the story of the fall of the House of Atreus in a series of retributive murders over three generations. Agamemnon, who has killed his daughter to ensure victory over the Trojans, returns home and is killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. This is followed by the vengeance of their son Orestes.
The Oresteia have inspired some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the modern world—from Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to T. S. Eliot and Simone de Beauvoir.
According to legend, Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a turtle onto his bald head, taking it for a stone on which the shell could be broken. Aeschylus’s head was broken; this fulfilled an oracle’s prediction that Aeschylus would be struck dead by a force from the heavens.
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There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Grief, Pain
The wisest of the wise may err.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Mistakes, Wisdom
Countless chuckles of the waves of the sea.
—Aeschylus
Obedience to truth known, is the king’s highway to that which is still beyond us.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Obedience
There’s nothing certain in a man’s life except this: That he must lose it.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Certainty, Doubt, Death, Uncertainty
Time as he grows old teaches many lessons.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Time Management
Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend’s success without envy.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Success, Envy
Polished brass is the mirror of the body and wine of the mind.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Wine
Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Past
The reward of suffering is experience.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Experience, Adversity
Who except the gods can live without any pain?
—Aeschylus
Topics: Acceptance
Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Suffering
It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Advice
Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Marriage
It is always in season for old men to learn.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Learning
For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Defense
Hell to ships, hell to men, hell to cities.
—Aeschylus
Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.
—Aeschylus
In war, truth is the first casualty.
—Aeschylus
Topics: War
Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Happiness
Time in its aging course teaches all things.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Time Management
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.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Suffering, Wisdom, Despair, Pain, Sleep, Heart, God, Learn
Fear is stronger than arms.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
I count false words the foulest plague of all.
—Aeschylus
Against necessity, against its strength, no one can fight and win.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Acceptance, Necessity
The rest, I keep silent: a great ox is treading on my tongue—but the house itself, if it got a voice, would speak very plainly.
—Aeschylus
The misfortunes of mankind are of varied plumage.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Adversity
And from your city do not wholly banish fear,
For what man living, freed from fear, will still be just?
—Aeschylus
There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Words, Kindness, Lies
The sea is there—and who shall quench it?—nurturing the juices which yield much purple worth its weight in silver, wholly renewable, the dye of vestments; there is a remedy for these here with the gods’ help, my lord, from our reserve: the house does not know how to be poor.
—Aeschylus
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