Why is this text so extraordinarily difficult?

[i__forget]

This is the text in question:

10月8日，在母亲灵位前写成《祭母文》，祭文追述慈母勤俭持家、爱抚子女、和睦邻里等优良品德：“吾母高风，首推博爱。远近亲疏，一皆覆载。恺恻慈祥，感动庶汇。爱力所及，原本真诚。不作诳言，不存欺心。整饬成性，一丝不诡。手泽所经，皆有条理。头脑精密，劈理分情。事无遗算，物无遁形。洁净之风，传遍戚里。不染一尘，身心表里”

It is taken from https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛泽东
Does anyone understand it? Why is it so complicated and incomprehensible? Is this some sort of ancient/poetic Chinese? Thanks in advance!

[Dlezcano]

I do not have any problem understanding the first part (still a bit difficult), but after the colon it becomes harder mainly by the heavy usage of classical Chinese. For instance, I asked a native the meaning of "恺恻" and he didn't know either. Also, many words are different in Modern Chinese, like  吾 instead of 我, or 物 instead of 事. Anyway, a Chinese won't have any problem getting what the text wants to convey.

My native language is not English, but I think it may be more or less as hard as reading some English from 400 years ago.

[i__forget]

Thanks for the answer! I didn't know classical Chinese was used until so recently (it is even used today in certain occasions according to Wikipedia).

[Expert]

Yes , this text uses some older Chinese words that we don’t really use today. Like 吾。this mean “ I”.

 

if you use this word today in your daily conversations, some people might laugh because it is outdated to use this. 

[骏马的丕沿?]

额……你能不能具体一点？你哪里不懂呢？这段文字挺直白的，它就是追述毛泽东他自己的母亲的优良品德，比如善良、大度、贴心、贤惠、勤力，等等。