Death is a debt we all must pay.

The line frames death as an unavoidable obligation—an owed “debt” that every human must eventually settle. In this metaphor, mortality is not a punishment reserved for the guilty nor a misfortune that can be bargained away; it is the universal condition that equalizes all social ranks and personal fortunes. The phrasing also suggests a moral economy: life is a kind of loan or temporary allotment, and death is the final accounting that no one escapes. In tragic contexts associated with Euripides, such a sentiment typically underlines the fragility of human plans and the limits of agency in the face of fate and necessity.