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I have to say, the difficulties of the first sentence of this play lasted for two hours, some crying, and a serious re-evaluation of my long-term career goals. (Why can't I just study Latin? I like Latin. Latin verbs only have four basic forms to memorize, and two moods, and two voices. Latin knows how to deploy a well-executed pluperfect when it's needed. Latin compound verbs often strongly resemble English words with similar meanings. I like Latin.) Fortunately, it got a little easier after that.
Slightly.
Euripides' Orestes: Prologue.
Electra:
There is nothing so terrible to tell, neither misfortune nor god-sent suffering, that the nature of man may not carry that grief. For the blessed man--I do not disdain his fate--sired by Zeus (as they say), Tantalus, fearing the rock hanging over his head, floats in the air; and he pays this penalty (as they say) because, being a man, holding himself to be equal to the gods at the communal table, he let loose an undisciplined tongue, in shameful madness.
This man sired Pelops, and from him Atreus was born, upon whom the goddess, combing her garlands, spun domestic strife--to make war against Thyestes, who was his brother. Why is it necessary for me to recapitulate these unspeakable things? Atreus fed him his murdered children.
And from Atreus--for I do not speak of the events in the middle--was born glorious (if indeed glorious) Agamemnon, and Menelaus, from a Cretan mother, Aerope. Menelaus married the woman hated by the gods, Helen, while lord Agamemnon married Clytemnestra, a distinguished marriage among the Greeks; from her we three girls were born of one mother--Chrysothemis, Iphigenia, and me, Electra--and a boy, Orestes, from a most unholy mother, who killed her husband by wrapping him in endless cloth; and it is not proper for a maiden to speak of her reasons; I leave these things obscure to be considered among the public.
And why must Phoebus be accused of injustice? But he persuaded Orestes to kill the mother who bore him, which does not carry good repute towards all; and all the same he killed her, not disobeying the god; and I, what kind of woman, partook in the murder. Also Pylades, who helped us with this deed.
Slightly.
Euripides' Orestes: Prologue.
Electra:
There is nothing so terrible to tell, neither misfortune nor god-sent suffering, that the nature of man may not carry that grief. For the blessed man--I do not disdain his fate--sired by Zeus (as they say), Tantalus, fearing the rock hanging over his head, floats in the air; and he pays this penalty (as they say) because, being a man, holding himself to be equal to the gods at the communal table, he let loose an undisciplined tongue, in shameful madness.
This man sired Pelops, and from him Atreus was born, upon whom the goddess, combing her garlands, spun domestic strife--to make war against Thyestes, who was his brother. Why is it necessary for me to recapitulate these unspeakable things? Atreus fed him his murdered children.
And from Atreus--for I do not speak of the events in the middle--was born glorious (if indeed glorious) Agamemnon, and Menelaus, from a Cretan mother, Aerope. Menelaus married the woman hated by the gods, Helen, while lord Agamemnon married Clytemnestra, a distinguished marriage among the Greeks; from her we three girls were born of one mother--Chrysothemis, Iphigenia, and me, Electra--and a boy, Orestes, from a most unholy mother, who killed her husband by wrapping him in endless cloth; and it is not proper for a maiden to speak of her reasons; I leave these things obscure to be considered among the public.
And why must Phoebus be accused of injustice? But he persuaded Orestes to kill the mother who bore him, which does not carry good repute towards all; and all the same he killed her, not disobeying the god; and I, what kind of woman, partook in the murder. Also Pylades, who helped us with this deed.