A similar twilight seemed to invest the very structure of drama, especially the function of the chorus.
同样的朦胧的暮色,笼罩着悲剧的结构,尤其是在歌队的目的上。
Then again, how ambiguous did the solutions of all moral problems seem!
况且,道德问题方面的答案还是多么使人疑惑!
How problematical the way in which the myths were treated!
神说的处理也颇成问题,
How irregular the distribution of fortune and misfortune!
泰运与否运又分配等这么不均等!
There was also much in the language of older tragedy that he took exception to, or to say the least, found puzzling:
甚至在这些旧悲剧的语言方面,也有许多使他反感,至少是莫明其妙的东西;
Why all this pomp in the representation of simple relationships?
尤其是他发现一些简单的关系未免夸张过甚,
Why all those tropes and hyperboles, where the characters themselves were simple and straightforward?
平凡的角色也用上过多的比喻和浮夸的词藻。
Euripides sat in the theater pondering, a troubled spectator.
所以,他坐在剧场里,忐忑不安的思索;
In the end he had to admit to himself that he did not understand his great predecessors.
作为一个观众,他承认他不能了解他的先辈大师。
But since he looked upon reason as the fountainhead of all doing and enjoying, he had to find out whether anybody shared these notions of his, or whether he was alone in facing up to such incommensurable features.
然而,如果他认为了解乃是欣赏和创作的主要根源,那末他就要追问,要环顾四周,看看是否别人也象他那样思考,也象他那样感到这种深不可测的奥妙。
But the multitude, including some of the best individuals, gave him only a smile of distrust;
然而,许多人,连带最优秀的人们。只用一个不信任的微笑回答他;
none of them would tell him why, notwithstanding his misgivings and reservations, the great masters were right nonetheless.
便是没有一个人能够对他解释,为甚么大师们总是对的,尽管他抱着怀疑和异议。
In this tormented state of mind, Euripides discovered his second spectator--one who did not understand tragedy and for that reason spumed it.
于是,怀着极其痛苦的心情,他找到另一个观众了,这个观众不了解悲刚,所以不尊重悲剧。
Allied with him he could risk coming out of his isolation to fight that tremendous battle against the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles;
同这观众联合起来,摆脱了孤立的情况,他就敢于展开反对埃斯库罗斯和索福克勒斯的艺术作品的残酷斗争;
not by means of polemics, but as a tragic poet determined to make his notion of tragedy prevail over the traditional notions.
他不是以论战者的姿态,而是以悲剧诗人的身份提出他自己的悲剧的概念,来反抗传统的概念。