You end up consulting several translations and then demonstrating sufficiently how the author went about expressing himself. Working with Sophocles taught me to be satisfied with something short of clarity. Even after applying all the usual procedures to shed light on the lines 540-554 they still seem somewhat mystifying, it isn't like the text becomes perfectly lucid. I think it has taken me about about a week to do 15 lines with numerous distractions but working on it for an hour or so every day. But here like everywhere, life is a matter of compromises, and I think 6 months for Agamemnon is not a bad compromise - it's not really that long. I think a very deepgoing study of the text can be justified and it can open a view not only to the text itself, but to what people of the past thought about life generally. Some texts are certainly worth a lifetime's study, and Agamemnon is probably one of them. I'm not claiming, though, that the play was "piece of cake" for this Athenian layman. By intensely studying the play, we can try to get into the spirit, but it will never be the same for us as it was for any Athenian layman of the 5th century. It's impossible to replicate this experience, because we live in a different world and different culture and speak different languages - whatever we do, we just won't get it, our background just isn't the right one. That was the original "Agamemnon of Aeschylus" experience. My point was that in 5th century Athens, when they were playing Agamemnon for the first time, you were supposed to see it only once and only for the couple of hours the play would last. We had this same discussion about Thucydides. You will probably not have a lot fellow travelers. If you can read Aeschylus Agamemnon at the rate I read the Gospels then go right ahead and do it. In Attic Tragedy I exegete as I read because it is virtually impossible to read it otherwise. In text I am familiar with, like the New Testament or the LXX I read fast and exegete slow. There are all kinds of ways to approach an ancient greek text. The next line was easy, about two minutes. ![]() Today I spent with many distractions roughly ninety minutes on one line with four words trying to fit it into the flow of thought. I have been mulling over lines 540-545 off and on for several days. After lunch decided to look at Aeschylus Agamemnon. I'm supposed to get a quote from the owner - crew chief when they get done so I am not protected by my 40db industrial strength noise suppressors. This afternoon a tree service crew arrived across the street and they are still there as I write. ![]() I spent most of the morning studying a few lines in chapter three of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.
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