- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
This passage comes within a complex description of the familial curse affecting the House of Atreus. The story of Orestes is one example of a life consumed by this curse. The quote comes from an oracle (speaking in the voice of Apollo) who confirms Orestes' intuition that he must kill his mother to avenge his father, even though he knows that to do so will destroy him. This story makes us contemplate the senselessness and inevitability of vengeance. Because of old sins and violence, Orestes is doomed to repeat patterns of bloodshed even while he knows they will ruin him…