Aeschylus (Ancient Greek: Αἰσχύλος, Aiskhulos; c. 525/524 BC – c. 456/455 BC) was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict amongst them whereas, previously, characters had interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times, and there is a longstanding debate about his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy and his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.
The desert rips our flesh
Our mouths dry
Our skin is cracked
Moisture is what we crave
The mirage of a city
Our only antagonist
As the heat bakes our skin
Nothing left
Vicious circle
Our bodies are dead
The sand gripped our knees
I've made so many mistakes
Lives passing through me
I've made so many mistakes
without noticing such lies
They never ask
or know any better
Touching, tasting
There is no difference
Feeling's left rotten
Now we curl up, hold ourselves
A whole generation
standing at our graves
Who's to blame
These lessons won't be taught
And we scream at the top of our lungs
To the placated youth
Mirrored images
Bastardized
Distorted
A whole generation
standing at our graves
And we scream at the top of our lungs
Tearing at the wings
Flying away
Nothing can keep me here
Slipped through my fingers
I struggled and I fought
The burning in my eyes
In my eyes and throat
Choking on my thoughts
Always scratching
This silence is deafening
These ideas, These images
Are pictures I can't paint
Passing into shadow
So what does it take to break through?
Skulls are thick and I'm just sick.
These words don't seem to resonate like they should.
The sound. The look.
Are all being sold right back to us.
Marketed for mass consumption.
No matter who's sitting in the steat strings are attached.
Corporate interest have their hands hovering.
Individuals get fucked in the end.
While the puppeteers take what they need.
Draining life from our viens.
Our lives are up for sale.
How much are we worth?
Everything that was sacred has now been mass produced.
For our convenience.
Is this what we want?
Corporate intersts have their hands everything
Heads lift with vacant eyes
We nod for some formality
Tucked away in homes
Left alone, nursing our own morality
Few hours spent with our generations past
Nothing how I want to remember it
Tired eyes look back at me
Wake up, wake up
We're losing everything
Our minds lifted
Stripped of our will to fight
Complacent ideals
We are fixtures
Barely passing as living human beings
We are fixtures
Wake up, wake up
We're losing everything
Wake up, wake up
We are fixtures
Your name in lights raised high so everyone can see
The imave you've created for yourself is sickening
A pathetic facade of bright colors lacking
No tangeable thought
No feelings radiating
The emotion's gone
Representation is lackluster
You're capturing an image of yourself that you can't live up to
You can have it
Rest assured this night, tomorrow's a new day.
Everything will change.
These feelings of unrest will only make you fight that much more.
Rest assured, our time will come.
We're all tired of waiting this out.
We all feel the same emotions.
To burn out, screaming past, fixated on the crash.
Instructions were thrown out so long ago.
No margins left
No margins left
This course, this course is dialed.
Don't let this pass by
Dialed in
Your prose is getting to be all the theatre
Your characters
Before we sit down to write
Remember we've always been a reader
Long before a writer
Do you know what you will be asked when you die?
Were most of your stars out?
Three years drip down the drain
and we're drowning in it all
We bought the ticket
and our legs are nothing
but a bloody tangled mess
Because we've been running non-stop
in hopes to find what we're looking for
We can not keep hiding in songs and ignoring sound
This "can" is tradition
and the "not" is freedom
Yeah, right.
Dead presidents represent us
Not fools and lovers
So what will it be
The king or the captain?
So what will it be
We're all liars,
playing our little games.
Where do we get off?
Honesty is a dream.
The haze has lifted.
Once a room of smiling faces.
Now it's all so calculated and expected.
We're all liars!
Thanks for coming out.
We have merch in the back.
We're all liars here,
playing our own little games.
Counting our failures
Feeling our insides burn with defeat
Walking away from it all runs through our heads
But we stay
Our insides burn
Everything feels so right
Our eyes on fire
Our eyes on fire
Counting our failures our insides burn with defeat
Let us wait until dark
The storm is passing over us
Our throats are dry with anticipation
Our first attempts at using our voices
It's been months since we've found words
These nights we hold our heads
with shaky hands
Wondering why we even mutter these words
Wondering why we even mutter these words
It's been months since we've found words
These nights we hold our heads with shaky hands
Images engrained in our heads
Sicky figures portrayed as beautiful
Our eyes hurt from seeing this grotesque parade
Leaving nothing for imagination
Our sensual acts are so predictable so engrossed with a fixated pretense
That's nothing I ever want to be
That's nothign I ever want to be
What we see is not the truth
What we see is not possible
We wipe away the sleep from our eyes
to be blinded by all of this light surrounding us
Cover ourselves to hide
knowing that if we look long enough we might be able (to) see
Cities burn and tides will rise
Contact with silence
Breathless echoes of life
Cities burn and tides will rise
A commanding silence stares
Cities burn and tides will rise
Breaking senses down
Chasing the infinite
Skepticism from out saturated minds
Whispers reverberate off the night's canvas
and in my head cities burn and tides will rise
Drag the anchor
Drag the anchor
We can't seem to get away
Where do we settle tonight?
We build our lives thinking this will never happen
And now everything is lost
Rebuild, will this happen again
Rebuild, our lives drag this anchor
Where do we settle tonight?
Will the levy's hold?
Will this happen tonight?
Will the levy's hold?
Will this happen tonight?
We've all been here before.
We've all seen it before.
We've all heared it before.
Everything fails in comparison,
recreating the same emotion
time and time again.
We're bound to fail.
Nothing can be recaptured.
Nothing!
Save it!
Relish it!
Realize this (Realize!)
and you'll be (You'll be!)
relieved. (Take it!)