Daily Inspiration Quote by Aeschylus

Aeschylus doesn’t bother with abstraction here; he gives you a physical disgust response and lets that do the moral work. “Clear water” is innocence, civic health, a mind capable of judgment. “Slime” isn’t just dirt, it’s something living, spreading, hard to rinse off - corruption with a pulse. The line’s sting is its irreversibility: once you foul the source, you can’t expect purity downstream. It’s an ancient way of warning against the modern fantasy that you can flirt with rot and still drink clean.

As a tragedian writing in a young democracy, Aeschylus is obsessed with how private contamination becomes public catastrophe. Greek tragedy treats wrongdoing less as a sealed, personal failure than as a miasma - a taint that clings to families, courts, and cities. The metaphor implies that the real crime isn’t only the initial act; it’s the decision to introduce corruption into a system that depends on trust. Think of juries swayed, rulers softened by flattery, citizens numbed by propaganda. You don’t just “add a little” slime.

The intent, then, is prophylactic: guard the springs. The subtext is accusatory. If you’re looking around for “good drinking water” after you’ve done the polluting, you’re already pretending you didn’t choose the outcome. Aeschylus turns accountability into ecology: actions alter environments, and environments shape what becomes possible afterward.