Board Thread:Morrowind/@comment-6365350-20130508041244/@comment-4787430-20130508055315

Unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, the combat system in Morrowind is, to put it bluntly, a headache. If you're standing there attacking the enemy then you're only doing a chop attack (which is the default attack) and since you just started the game you still have a low level in the Blade/Blunt skill, so you are not likely to deal much damage. The difficulty could also be affecting how often you are dying, so you could always move the difficulty slider to the left to take some of that burden off your introduction to Morrowind.