"Apollo, Apollo!1095
Agyieu Apollo mi!
Ah! quo me tandem duxisti? ad qualem domum?
* * * * *
"Heu, heu, ecce, ecce, cohibe a vacca 1134
Taurum: vestibus involens
Nigricornem machina
Percutit; cadit vero in aquali vase.
Insidiosi lebetis casum ut intelligas velim.
* * * * *
Heu, heu, argutae lusciniae fatum mihi tribuis:
* * * * *
"Heu nuptiae, nuptiae Paridis exitiales1165
Amicis! eheu Scamandri patria unda!"
All this howling of Kassandra comes at one from the page, and the grimness also of the Iambics:
"Ohime! lethali intus percussus sum vulnere."1352
"Tace: quis clamat vulnus lethaliter vulneratus?"
"Ohime! iterum secundo ictu sauciatus."
"Patrari facinus mihi videtur regis ex ejulatu.1355
"At tuta communicemus consilia."
"Ego quidem vobis meam dico sententiam," etc.
Here or in the opening of the play, or where you like in this Latin, we are at once in contact with the action, something real is going on, we are keen and curious on the instant, but I cannot get any such impact from any part of the Browning.
"In bellum nuptam,
Auctricem que contentionum, Helenam:695
Quippe quae congruenter
Perditrix navium, perditrix virorum, perditrix urbium,
E delicatis
Thalami ornamentis navigavit
Zephyri terrigenae aura.
Et numerosi scutiferi,
Venatores secundum vestigia,
Remorum inapparentia
Appulerunt ad Simoentis ripas
Foliis abundantes
Ob jurgium cruentum."
"War-wed, author of strife,
Fitly Helen, destroyer of ships, of men,
Destroyer of cities,
From delicate-curtained room
Sped by land breezes.
"Swift the shields on your track,
Oars on the unseen traces,
And leafy Simois
Gone red with blood."[6]
Contested Helen, Ἀμφινεικῆ.
"War-wed, contested,
(Fitly) Helen, destroyer of ships; of men;
Destroyer of cities,
"From the delicate-curtained room
Sped by land breezes.
"Swift on the shields on your track,
Oars on the unseen traces.
"Red leaves in Simois!"
"Rank flower of love, for Troy."
"Quippe leonem educavit....726
Mansuetum, pueris amabilem....
... divinitus sacerdos Ates (i.e. Paris)
In aedibus enutritus est.
"Statim igitur venit746
Ad urbem Ilii,
Ut ita dicam, animus
Tranquillae serenitatis, placidum
Divitiarum ornamentum
Blandum oculourum telum,
Animum pungens flos amoris
(Helena) accubitura. Perfecit autem
Nuptiarum acerbos exitus,
Mala vicina, malaque socia,
Irruens in Priamidas,
Ductu Jovis Hospitalis,
Erinnys luctuosa sponsis."
It seems to me that English translators have gone wide in two ways, first in trying to keep every adjective, when obviously many adjectives in the original have only melodic value, secondly they have been deaved with syntax; have wasted time, involved their English, trying first to evolve a definite logical structure for the Greek and secondly to preserve it, and all its grammatical relations, in English.
One might almost say that Aeschylus' Greek is agglutinative, that his general drive, especially in choruses, is merely to remind the audience of the events of the Trojan war; that syntax is subordinate, and duly subordinated, left out, that he is not austere, but often even verbose after a fashion (not Euripides' fashion).
A reading version might omit various things which would be of true service only if the English were actually to be sung on a stage, or chanted to the movements of the choric dance or procession.