Also 6 epitazis. [mod.L., a. Gr. ἐπίτασις, f. ἐπιτείνειν to intensify, f. ἐπί upon + τείνειν to stretch.] ‘That part of a play where the plot thickens’ (Liddell and Scott).
The Alexandrian grammarians regarded a dramatic work as consisting of three parts, the protasis or introduction, the epitasis, in which the action begins, and the catastrophe. Cf. CATASTASIS and quots. under that word.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 50. To make a more pleasing Epitazis, it fell out amongst them thus.
a. 1626. Bp. Andrewes, Serm. (1856), I. 95. Being in the theatre all the while from the epitasis to the very catastrophe.
1759–67. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1802), II. v. 159. This matter … may make no uninteresting underplot in the epitasis and working-up of this drama.
1815. Hist. J. Decastro, I. 259. The epitasis thereof, that is to say, the bustle, comes next.
