Complete. Translated by Thomas Twining (1735–1804).
Part I
MY design is to treat of poetry in general, and of its several species; to inquire what is the proper effect of each—what construction of a fable, or plan, is essential to a good poem—of what, and how many, parts each species consists; with whatever else belongs to the same subject: which I shall consider in the order that most naturally presents itself.
Epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambics, as also, for the most part, the music of the flute and of the lyre—all these are, in the most general view of them, imitations; differing, however, from each other in three respects, according to the different means, the different objects, or the different manner of their imitation.
For, as men, some through art and some through habit, imitate various objects by means of color and figure, and others, again, by voice, so, with respect to the arts above mentioned, rhythm, words, and melody are the different means by which, either single or variously combined, they all produce their imitation.
For example, in the imitations of the flute and the lyre, and of any other instruments capable of producing a similar effect,—as the syrinx or pipe,—melody and rhythm only are employed. In those of dance, rhythm alone, without melody; for there are dancers who, by rhythm applied to gesture, express manners, passions, and actions.
The epopœia imitates by words alone, or by verse; and that verse may either be composed of various metres, or confined, according to the practice hitherto established, to a single species. For we should, otherwise, have no general name which would comprehend the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues; or poems in iambic, elegiac, or other metres, in which the epic species of imitation may be conveyed. Custom, indeed, connecting the poetry or making with the metre, has denominated some elegiac poets, i.e., makers of elegiac verse; others, epic poets, i.e., makers of hexameter verse; thus distinguishing poets, not according to the nature of their imitation, but according to that of their metre only. For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common, except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of poet, while the other should rather be called a physiologist than a poet.
So, also, though any one should choose to convey his imitation in every kind of metre promiscuously, as Chæremon has done in his “Centaur,” which is a medley of all sorts of verse, it would not immediately follow that, on that account merely, he was entitled to the name of poet. But of this enough.
There are, again, other species of poetry which make use of all the means of imitation,—rhythm, melody, and verse. Such are the dithyrambic, that of nomes, tragedy, and comedy: with this difference, however, that in some of these they are employed all together, in others separately. And such are the differences of these arts with respect to the means by which they imitate.
But as the objects of imitation are the actions of men, and these men must of necessity be either good or bad (for on this does character principally depend; the manners being, in all men, most strongly marked by virtue and vice), it follows that we can only represent men, either as better than they actually are, or worse, or exactly as they are: just as, in painting, the pictures of Polygnotus were above the common level of nature; those of Pauson below it; those of Dionysius faithful likenesses.
Now, it is evident that each of the imitations above mentioned will admit of these differences, and become a different kind of imitation as it imitates objects that differ in this respect. This may be the case with dancing; with the music of the flute and of the lyre; and also with the poetry which employs words, or verse only, without melody or rhythm: thus, Homer has drawn men superior to what they are; Cleophon as they are; Hegemon the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the “Deliad,” worse than they are.
So, again, with respect to dithyrambics and nomes: in these, too, the imitation may be as different as that of the “Persians” by Timotheus, and the “Cyclops” by Philoxenus.
Tragedy, also, and comedy are distinguished in the same manner; the aim of comedy being to exhibit men worse than we find them, that of tragedy better.
There remains the third difference—that of the manner in which each of these objects may be imitated. For the poet, imitating the same object, and by the same means, may do it either in narration—and that, again, either personating other characters, as Homer does, or, in his own person throughout, without change;—or he may imitate by representing all his characters as real, and employed in the very action itself.
These, then, are the three differences by which, as I said in the beginning, all imitation is distinguished: those of the means, the object, and the manner; so that Sophocles is, in one respect, an imitator of the same kind with Homer, as elevated characters are the objects of both; in another respect, of the same kind with Aristophanes, as both imitate in the way of action; whence, according to some, the application of the term Drama (i.e., action) to such poems. Upon this it is that the Dorians ground their claim to the invention both of tragedy and comedy. For comedy is claimed by the Megarians: both by those of Greece, who contend that it took its rise in their popular government, and by those of Sicily, among whom the poet Epicharmus flourished long before Chionides and Magnes; and tragedy, also, is claimed by some of the Dorians of Peloponnesus. In support of these claims they argue from the words themselves. They allege that the Doric word for a village is comé, the Attic demos; and that comedians were so called, not from comazein,—to revel,—but from their strolling about the comai, or villages, before they were tolerated in the city. They say, further, that to do, or act, they express by the word dran; the Athenians by prattein.
And thus much as to the differences of imitation—how many, and what, they are.
Poetry, in general, seems to have derived its origin from two causes, each of them natural.
1. To imitate is instinctive in man from his infancy. By this he is distinguished from other animals, that he is of all the most imitative, and through this instinct receives his earliest education. All men likewise naturally receive pleasure from imitation. This is evident from what we experience in viewing the works of imitative art; for in them we contemplate with pleasure, and with the more pleasure the more exactly they are imitated, such objects as, if real, we could not see without pain: as the figures of the meanest and most disgusting animals, dead bodies, and the like. And the reason of this is that to learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men; with this difference only, that the multitude partake of it in a more transient and compendious manner. Hence the pleasure they receive from a picture: in viewing it they learn, they infer, they discover what every object is; that this, for instance, is such a particular man, etc. For if we suppose the object represented to be something which the spectator had never seen, his pleasure in that case will not arise from the imitation, but from the workmanship, the colors, or some such cause.
2. Imitation, then, being thus natural to us, and, secondly, melody and rhythm being also natural (for as to metre, it is plainly a species of rhythm), those persons in whom originally these propensities were the strongest were naturally led to rude and extemporaneous attempts, which, gradually improved, gave birth to poetry.
But this poetry, following the different characters of its authors, naturally divided itself into two different kinds. They who were of a grave and lofty spirit chose for their imitation the actions and the adventures of elevated characters; while poets of a lighter turn represented those of the vicious and contemptible. And these composed originally satires, as the former did hymns and encomia.
Of the lighter kind, we have no poem earlier than the time of Homer, though many such in all probability there were; but from his time we have, as his “Margites,” and others of the same species, in which the iambic was introduced as the most proper measure; and hence, indeed, the name of iambic, because it was the measure in which they used to iambize (i.e., to satirize) each other.
And thus these old poets were divided into two classes: those who used the heroic, and those who used the iambic verse.
And as, in the serious kind, Homer alone may be said to deserve the name of poet, not only on account of his other excellences, but also of the dramatic spirit of his imitations, so was he likewise the first who suggested the idea of comedy, by substituting ridicule for invective, and giving that ridicule a dramatic cast; for his “Margites” bears the same analogy to comedy as his “Iliad” and “Odyssey” to tragedy. But when tragedy and comedy had once made their appearance, succeeding poets, according to the turn of their genius, attached themselves to the one or the other of these new species: the lighter sort, instead of iambic, became comic poets; the graver, tragic, instead of heroic; and that on account of the superior dignity and higher estimation of these latter forms of poetry.
Whether tragedy has now, with respect to its constituent parts, received the utmost improvement of which it is capable, considered both in itself and relatively to the theatre, is a question that belongs not to this place.
Both tragedy, then, and comedy, having originated in a rude and unpremeditated manner,—the first from the dithyrambic hymns, the other from those Phallic songs which in many cities remain still in use,—each advanced gradually towards perfection by such successive improvements as were most obvious.
Tragedy, after various changes, reposed at length in the completion of its proper form. Æschylus first added a second actor; he also abridged the chorus, and made the dialogue the principal part of tragedy. Sophocles increased the number of actors to three, and added the decoration of painted scenery. It was also late before tragedy threw aside the short and simple fable and ludicrous language of its satyric original, and attained its proper magnitude and dignity. The iambic measure was then first adopted; for originally the trochaic tetrameter was made use of, as better suited to the satyric and saltatorial genius of the poem at that time; but when the dialogue was formed, nature itself pointed out the proper metre. For the iambic is, of all metres, the most colloquial, as appears evidently from this fact, that our common conversation frequently falls into iambic verse; seldom into hexameter, and only when we depart from the usual melody of speech. Episodes were also multiplied, and every other part of the drama successively improved and polished.
But of this enough: to enter into a minute detail would, perhaps, be a task of some length.
Comedy, as was said before, is an imitation of bad characters, bad, not with respect to every sort of vice, but to the ridiculous only, as being a species of turpitude or deformity, since it may be defined to be a fault or deformity of such a sort as is neither painful nor destructive. A ridiculous face, for example, is something ugly and distorted, but not so as to cause pain.
The successive improvements of tragedy, and the respective authors of them, have not escaped our knowledge; but those of comedy, from the little attention that was paid to it in its origin, remain in obscurity. For it was not till late that comedy was authorized by the magistrate, and carried on at the public expense; it was at first a private and voluntary exhibition. From the time, indeed, when it began to acquire some degree of form, its poets have been recorded; but who first introduced masks, or prologues, or augmented the number of actors—these, and other particulars of the same kind, are unknown.
Epicharmus and Phormis were the first who invented comic fables. This improvement, therefore, is of Sicilian origin. But, of Athenian poets, Crates was the first who abandoned the iambic form of comedy, and made use of invented and general stories, or fables.
Epic poetry agrees so far with tragic as it is an imitation of great characters and actions by means of words; but in this it differs, that it makes use of only one kind of metre throughout, and that it is narrative. It also differs in length; for tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine its action within the limits of a single revolution of the sun, or nearly so; but the time of epic action is indefinite. This, however, at first, was equally the case with tragedy itself.
Of their constituent parts, some are common to both, some peculiar to tragedy. He, therefore, who is a judge of the beauties and defects of tragedy is, of course, equally a judge with respect to those of epic poetry; for all the parts of the epic poem are to be found in tragedy; not all those of tragedy in the epic poem.
OF the species of poetry which imitates in hexameters, and of comedy, we shall speak hereafter. Let us now consider tragedy, collecting first, from what has been already said, its true and essential definition.
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of some action that is important, entire, and of a proper magnitude—by language, embellished and rendered pleasurable, but by different means in different parts—in the way, not of narration, but of action, effecting through pity and terror the correction and refinement of such passions.
By pleasurable language I mean a language that has the embellishments of rhythm, melody, and metre. And I add, by different means in different parts, because in some parts metre alone is employed—in others, melody.
Now, as tragedy imitates by acting, the decoration, in the first place, must necessarily be one of its parts; then the melopœia, or music, and the diction,—for these last include the means of tragic imitation. By diction, I mean the metrical composition. The meaning of melopœia is obvious to every one.
Again, tragedy being an imitation of an action, and the persons employed in that action being necessarily characterized by their manners and their sentiments (since it is from these that actions themselves derive their character), it follows that there must also be manners and sentiments as the two causes of actions, and, consequently, of the happiness or unhappiness of all men. The imitation of the action is the fable; for by fable I now mean the contexture of incidents, or the plot. By manners I mean whatever marks the characters of the persons; by sentiments whatever they say, whether proving anything or delivering a general sentiment, etc.
Hence, all tragedy must necessarily contain six parts, which, together, constitute its peculiar character, or quality—fable, manners, diction, sentiments, decoration, and music. Of these parts, two relate to the means, one to the manner, and three to the object of imitation. And these are all. These specific parts, if we may so call them, have been employed by most poets, and are all to be found in almost every tragedy.
But of all these parts the most important is the combination of incidents, or the fable. Because tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of actions—of life, of happiness and unhappiness; for happiness consists in action, and the supreme good itself—the very end of life—is action of a certain kind, not quality. Now, the manners of men constitute only their quality or characters; but it is by their actions that they are happy, or the contrary. Tragedy, therefore, does not imitate action for the sake of imitating manners, but in the imitation of action that of manners is of course involved; so that the action and the fable are the end of tragedy; and in everything the end is of principal importance.
Again, tragedy cannot subsist without action; without manners it may. The tragedies of most modern poets have this defect—a defect common, indeed, among poets in general. As among painters also, this is the case with Zeuxis, compared with Polygnotus; the latter excels in the expression of manners. There is no such expression in the pictures of Zeuxis.
Further, suppose any one to string together a number of speeches in which the manners are strongly marked, the language and the sentiments well turned—this will not be sufficient to produce the proper effect of tragedy; that end will much rather be answered by a piece defective in each of those particulars, but furnished with a proper fable and contexture of incidents. Just as in painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.
Add to this, that those parts of tragedy by means of which it becomes most interesting and affecting are parts of the fable: I mean revolutions and discoveries.
As a further proof, adventurers in tragic writing are sooner able to arrive at excellence in the language and the manners than in the construction of a plot, as appears from almost all our earlier poets.
The fable, then, is the principal part,—the soul, as it were,—of tragedy, and the manners are next in rank; tragedy being an imitation of an action, and through that principally of the agents.
In the third place stand the sentiments. To this part it belongs to say such things as are true and proper, which in the dialogue depend on the political and rhetorical arts; for the ancients made their characters speak in the style of political and popular eloquence, but now the rhetorical manner prevails.
The manners are whatever manifests the disposition of the speaker. There are speeches, therefore, which are without manners or character, as not containing anything by which the propensities or aversions of the person who delivers them can be known. The sentiments comprehend whatever is said, whether proving anything affirmatively or negatively, or expressing some general reflection, etc.
Fourth in order is the diction—that is, as I have already said, the expression of the sentiments by words, the power and effect of which is the same, whether in verse or prose.
Of the remaining two parts the music stands next—of all the pleasurable accompaniments and embellishments of tragedy the most delightful.
The decoration has also a great effect, but, of all the parts, is most foreign to the art; for the power of tragedy is felt without representation and actors, and the beauty of the decorations depends more on the art of the mechanic than on that of the poet.
These things being thus adjusted, let us go on to examine in what manner the fable should be constructed, since this is the first and most important part of tragedy.
Now, we have defined tragedy to be an imitation of an action that is complete and entire, and that has also a certain magnitude; for a thing may be entire and a whole, and yet not be of any magnitude.
1. By entire I mean that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not necessarily suppose anything before it, but which requires something to follow it. An end, on the contrary, is that which supposes something to precede it, either necessarily or probably, but which nothing is required to follow. A middle is that which both supposes something to precede and requires something to follow. The poet, therefore, who would construct his fable properly is not at liberty to begin or end where he pleases, but must conform to these definitions.
2. Again: whatever is beautiful, whether it be an animal, or any other thing composed of different parts, must not only have those parts arranged in a certain manner, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty consists in magnitude and order. Hence it is that no very minute animal can be beautiful; the eye comprehends the whole too instantaneously to distinguish and compare the parts. Neither, on the contrary, can one of a prodigious size be beautiful; because, as all its parts cannot be seen at once, the whole (the unity of object) is lost to the spectator,—as it would be, for example, if he were surveying an animal of many miles in length. As, therefore, in animals and other objects, a certain magnitude is requisite, but that magnitude must be such as to present a whole easily comprehended by the eye, so in the fable a certain length is requisite, but that length must be such as to present a whole easily comprehended by the memory.
With respect to the measure of this length—if referred to actual representation in the dramatic contests, it is a matter foreign to the art itself; for if a hundred tragedies were to be exhibited in concurrence, the length of each performance must be regulated by the hourglass,—a practice of which, it is said, there have formerly been instances. But if we determine this measure by the nature of the thing itself, the more extensive the fable, consistently with the clear and easy comprehension of the whole, the more beautiful will it be with respect to magnitude. In general, we may say that an action is sufficiently extended when it is long enough to admit of a change of fortune, from happy to unhappy, or the reverse, brought about by a succession, necessary or probable, of well-connected incidents.
A fable is not one, as some conceive it to be, merely because the hero of it is one. For numberless events happen to one man, many of which are such as cannot be connected into one event; and so, likewise, there are many actions of one man which cannot be connected into any one action. Hence appears the mistake of all those poets who have composed “Herculeids,” “Theseids,” and other poems of that kind. They conclude that because Hercules was one, so also must be the fable of which he is the subject. But Homer, among his many other excellences, seems also to have been perfectly aware of this mistake, either from art or genius. For when he composed his “Odyssey,” he did not introduce all the events of his hero’s life—such, for instance, as the wound he received upon Parnassus; his feigned madness when the Grecian army was assembling, etc.,—events not connected, either by necessary or probable consequence, with each other; but he comprehended those only which have relation to one action; for such we call that of the “Odyssey.” And in the same manner he composed his “Iliad.”
As, therefore, in other mimetic arts, one imitation is an imitation of one thing, so here the fable, being an imitation of an action, should be an imitation of an action that is one and entire, the parts of it being so connected that if any one of them be either transposed or taken away the whole will be destroyed or changed; for whatever may be either retained or omitted, without making any sensible difference, is not properly a part.
It appears, further, from what has been said, that it is not the poet’s province to relate such things as have actually happened, but such as might have happened—such as are possible, according either to probable or necessary consequence.
For it is not by writing in verse or prose that the historian and the poet are distinguished; the work of Herodotus might be versified, but it would still be a species of history, no less with metre than without. They are distinguished by this—that the one relates what has been, the other what might be. On this account poetry is a more philosophical and a more excellent thing than history; for poetry is chiefly conversant about general truth, history about particular. In what manner, for example, any person of a certain character would speak or act, probably or necessarily—this is general; and this is the object of poetry, even while it makes use of particular names. But what Alcibiades did, or what happened to him—this is particular truth.
With respect to comedy, this is now become obvious; for here the poet, when he has formed his plot of probable incidents, gives to his characters whatever names he pleases, and is not, like the iambic poets, particular and personal.
Tragedy, indeed, retains the use of real names; and the reason is, that what we are disposed to believe we must think possible. Now, what has never actually happened we are not apt to regard as possible; but what has been is unquestionably so, or it could not have been at all. There are, however, some tragedies in which one or two of the names are historical, and the rest feigned. There are even some in which none of the names are historical,—such is Agatho’s tragedy called “The Flower”; for in that all is invention, both incidents and names, and yet it pleases. It is by no means, therefore, essential that a poet should confine himself to the known and established subjects of tragedy. Such a restraint would, indeed, be ridiculous, since even those subjects that are known are known comparatively but to few, and yet are interesting to all.
From all this it is manifest that a poet should be a poet, or maker, of fables rather than of verses, since it is imitation that constitutes the poet, and of this imitation actions are the object; nor is he the less a poet though the incidents of his fable should chance to be such as have actually happened; for nothing hinders, but that some true events may possess that probability, the invention of which entitles him to the name of poet.
Of simple fables or actions the episodic are the worst. I call that an episodic fable the episodes of which follow each other without any probable or necessary connection,—a fault into which bad poets are betrayed by their want of skill, and good poets by the players; for in order to accommodate their pieces to the purposes of rival performers in the dramatic contests, they spin out the action beyond their powers, and are thus frequently forced to break the connection and continuity of its parts.
But tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of an action exciting terror and pity. Now, that purpose is best answered by such events as are not only unexpected, but unexpected consequences of each other; for by this means they will have more of the wonderful than if they appeared to be the effects of chance; since we find that, among events merely casual, those are the most wonderful and striking which seem to imply design: as when, for instance, the statue of Mitys at Argos killed the very man who had murdered Mitys, by falling down upon him as he was surveying it,—events of this kind not having the appearance of accident. It follows, then, that such fables as are formed on these principles must be the best.
Fables are of two sorts, simple and complicated: for so also are the actions themselves of which they are imitations. An action (having the continuity and unity prescribed) I call simple when its catastrophe is produced without either revolution or discovery; complicated, when with one or both. And these should arise from the structure of the fable itself, so as to be the natural consequences, necessary or probable, of what has preceded in the action. For there is a wide difference between incidents that follow from and incidents that follow only after each other.
A revolution is a change (such as has already been mentioned) into the reverse of what is expected from the circumstances of the action, and that produced, as we have said, by probable or necessary consequence.
Thus, in the “Œdipus,” the messenger, meaning to make Œdipus happy, and to relieve him from the dread he was under with respect to his mother, by making known to him his real birth, produces an effect directly contrary to his intention. Thus, also, in the tragedy of “Lynceus,” Lynceus is led to suffer death, Danaus follows to inflict it; but the event, resulting from the course of the incidents, is that Danaus is killed and Lynceus saved.
A discovery—as, indeed, the word implies—is a change from unknown to known, happening between those characters whose happiness or unhappiness forms the catastrophe of the drama, and terminating in friendship or enmity.
The best sort of discovery is that which is accompanied by a revolution, as in the “Œdipus.”
There are also other discoveries, for inanimate things of any kind may be recognized in the same manner, and we may discover whether such a particular thing was, or was not, done by such a person. But the discovery most appropriated to the fable and the action is that above defined, because such discoveries and revolutions must excite either pity or terror; and tragedy we have defined to be an imitation of pitiable and terrible actions, and because, also, by them the event, happy or unhappy, is produced.
Now discoveries, being relative things, are sometimes of one of the persons only, the other being already known; and sometimes they are reciprocal. Thus Iphigenia is discovered to Orestes by the letter which she charges him to deliver; and Orestes is obliged, by other means, to make himself known to her.
These, then, are two parts of the fable—revolution and discovery. There is a third which we denominate disasters. The two former have been explained. Disasters comprehend all painful or destructive actions: the exhibition of death, bodily anguish, wounds, and everything of that kind.
The parts of tragedy which are necessary to constitute its quality have been already enumerated. Its parts of quantity—the distinct parts into which it is divided—are these: prologue, episode, exode, and chorus, which last is also divided into the parode and the stasimon. These are common to all tragedies. The commoi are found in some only.
The prologue is all that part of a tragedy which precedes the parode of the chorus; the episode, all that part which is included between entire choral odes; the exode, that part which has no choral ode after it.
Of the choral part, the parode is the first speech of the whole chorus; the stasimon includes all those choral odes that are without anapests and trochees.
The commos is a general lamentation of the chorus and the actors together.
Such are the separate parts into which tragedy is divided. Its parts of quality were before explained.
The order of the subject leads us to consider, in the next place, what the poet should aim at, and what avoid, in the construction of his fable; and by what means the purpose of tragedy may be best effected.
Now, since it is requisite to the perfection of a tragedy that its plot should be of the complicated, not of the simple kind, and that it should imitate such actions as excite terror and pity (this being the peculiar property of the tragic imitation), it follows evidently, in the first place, that the change from prosperity to adversity should not be represented as happening to a virtuous character; for this raises disgust rather than terror or compassion. Neither should the contrary change, from adversity to prosperity, be exhibited in a vicious character: this, of all plans, is the most opposite to the genius of tragedy, having no one property that it ought to have; for it is neither gratifying in a moral view, nor affecting, nor terrible. Nor, again, should the fall of a very bad man from prosperous to adverse fortune be represented: because, though such a subject may be pleasing from its moral tendency, it will produce neither pity nor terror. For our pity is excited by misfortunes undeservedly suffered, and our terror by some resemblance between the sufferer and ourselves. Neither of these effects will, therefore, be produced by such an event.
There remains, then, for our choice, the character between these extremes: that of a person neither eminently virtuous or just, nor yet involved in misfortune by deliberate vice or villainy, but by some error of human frailty; and this person should also be some one of high fame and flourishing prosperity. For example, Œdipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families.
Hence it appears that, to be well constructed, a fable, contrary to the opinion of some, should be single rather than double; that the change of fortune should not be from adverse to prosperous, but the reverse; and that it should be the consequence, not of vice, but of some great frailty, in a character such as has been described, or better rather than worse.
These principles are confirmed by experience, for poets, formerly, admitted almost any story into the number of tragic subjects; but now the subjects of the best tragedies are confined to a few families,—to Alcmæon, Œdipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and others, the sufferers or the authors of some terrible calamity.
The most perfect tragedy, then, according to the principles of the art, is of this construction: whence appears the mistake of those critics who censure Euripides for this practice in his tragedies, many of which terminate unhappily; for this, as we have shown, is right. And, as the strongest proof of it, we find that upon the stage and in the dramatic contests such tragedies, if they succeed, have always the most tragic effect; and Euripides, though, in other respects faulty in the conduct of his subjects, seems clearly to be the most tragic of all poets.
I place in the second rank that kind of fable to which some assign the first: that which is of a double construction, like the “Odyssey,” and also ends in two opposite events, to the good and to the bad characters. That this passes for the best is owing to the weakness of the spectators, to whose wishes the poets accommodate their productions. This kind of pleasure, however, is not the proper pleasure of tragedy, but belongs rather to comedy, for there, if even the bitterest enemies, like Orestes and Ægisthus, are introduced, they quit the scene at last in perfect friendship, and no blood is shed on either side.
Terror and pity may be raised by the decoration,—the mere spectacle; but they may also arise from the circumstances of the action itself, which is far preferable and shows a superior poet. For the fable should be so constructed that, without the assistance of the sight, its incidents may excite horror and commiseration in those who hear them only: an effect which every one who hears the fable of the “Œdipus” must experience. But to produce this effect by means of the decoration discovers want of art in the poet, who must also be supplied, by the public, with an expensive apparatus.
As to those poets who make use of the decoration in order to produce, not the terrible, but the marvelous only, their purpose has nothing in common with that of tragedy. For we are not to seek for every sort of pleasure from tragedy, but for that only which is proper to the species.
Since, therefore, it is the business of the tragic poet to give that pleasure which arises from pity and terror, through imitation, it is evident that he ought to produce that effect by the circumstances of the action itself.
Let us then see of what kind those incidents are which appear most terrible or piteous.
Now, such actions must, of necessity, happen between persons who are either friends or enemies, or indifferent to each other. If an enemy kills, or purposes to kill, an enemy, in neither case is any commiseration raised in us beyond what necessarily arises from the nature of the action itself.
The case is the same when the persons are neither friends nor enemies. But when such disasters happen between friends—when, for instance, the brother kills or is going to kill his brother, the son his father, the mother her son, or the reverse—these, and others of a similar kind, are the proper incidents for the poet’s choice. The received tragic subjects, therefore, he is not at liberty essentially to alter; Clytemnestra must die by the hand of Orestes, and Eriphyle by that of Alcmæon; but it is his province to invent other subjects, and to make a skillful use of those which he finds already established. What I mean by a skillful use I proceed to explain.
The atrocious action may be perpetrated knowingly and intentionally, as was usual with the earlier poets, and as Euripides, also, has represented Medea destroying her children.
It may, likewise, be perpetrated by those who are ignorant, at the time, of the connection between them and the injured person, which they afterwards discover; like Œdipus, in Sophocles. There, indeed, the action itself does not make a part of the drama: the “Alcmæon” of Astydamas, and Telegonus in the “Ulysses Wounded,” furnish instances within the tragedy.
There is yet a third way, where a person upon the point of perpetrating, through ignorance, some dreadful deed, is prevented by a sudden discovery.
Beside these there is no other proper way,—for the action must of necessity be either done or not done, and that either with knowledge or without, but of all these ways, that of being ready to execute, knowingly, and yet not executing, is the worst; for this is, at the same time, shocking and yet not tragic, because it exhibits no disastrous event. It is, therefore, never, or very rarely, made use of. The attempt of Hæmon to kill Creon in the “Antigone” is an example.
Next to this is the actual execution of the purpose.
To execute, through ignorance, and afterwards to discover, is better; for thus the shocking atrociousness is avoided, and, at the same time, the discovery is striking.
But the best of all these ways is the last. Thus in the tragedy of “Cresphontes,” Merope, in the very act of putting her son to death, discovers him and is prevented. In the “Iphigenia,” the sister in the same manner discovers her brother; and in the “Helle” the son discovers his mother at the instant when he is going to betray her.
On this account it is that the subjects of tragedy, as before remarked, are confined to a small number of families, for it was not to art, but to fortune, that poets applied themselves to find incidents of this nature. Hence the necessity of having recourse to those families in which such calamities have happened.
Of the plot or fable and its requisites enough has now been said.
With respect to the manners four things are to be attended to by the poet.
First and principally, they should be good. Now, manners or character belong, as we have said before, to any speech or action that manifests a certain disposition; and they are bad or good as the disposition manifested is bad or good. This goodness of manners may be found in persons of every description; the manners of a woman or of a slave may be good, though, in general, women are, perhaps, rather bad than good, and slaves altogether bad.
The second requisite of the manners is propriety. There is a manly character of bravery and fierceness which cannot, with propriety, be given to a woman.
The third requisite is resemblance; for this is a different thing from their being good and proper, as above described.
The fourth is consistency; for even though the model of the poet’s imitation be some person of inconsistent manners, still that person must be represented as consistently inconsistent.
We have an example of manners unnecessarily bad, in the character of Menelaus in the tragedy of “Orestes”; of improper and unbecoming manners in the lamentation of Ulysses in “Scylla,” and in the speech of Menalippe; of inconsistent manners in the “Iphigenia at Aulis,”—for there the Iphigenia who supplicates for life has no resemblance to the Iphigenia of the conclusion.
In the manners, as in the fable, the poet should always aim, either at what is necessary, or what is probable; so that such a character shall appear to speak or act, necessarily or probably, in such a manner, and this event to be the necessary or probable consequence of that. Hence it is evident that the development also of a fable should arise out of the fable itself, and not depend upon machinery, as in the “Medea,” or in the incidents relative to the return of the Greeks, in the “Iliad.” The proper application of machinery is to such circumstances as are extraneous to the drama; such as either happened before the time of the action and could not by human means be known, or are to happen after and require to be foretold; for to the gods we attribute the knowledge of all things. But nothing improbable should be admitted in the incidents of the fable; or, if it cannot be avoided, it should at least be confined to such as are without the tragedy itself, as in the “Œdipus” of Sophocles.
Since tragedy is an imitation of what is best, we should follow the example of skillful portrait painters; who, while they express the peculiar lineaments and produce a likeness, at the same time improve upon the original. And thus, too, the poet, when he imitates the manners of passionate men (or of indolent, or any other of a similar kind), should draw an example approaching rather to a good than to a hard and ferocious character: as Achilles is drawn by Agatho and by Homer. These things the poet should keep in view; and, besides these, whatever relates to those senses which have a necessary connection with poetry; for here, also, he may often err. But of this enough has been said in the treatises already published.
What is meant by a discovery has already been explained. Its kinds are the following:—
First. The most inartificial of all, and to which, from poverty of invention, the generality of poets have recourse,—the discovery by visible signs. Of these signs, some are natural; as the lance with which the family of the earth-born Thebans was marked, or the stars which Carcinus has made use of in his “Thyestes”; others are adventitious, and of these some are corporal, as scars; some external, as necklaces, bracelets, etc., or the little boat by which the discovery is made in the tragedy of “Tyro.” Even these, however, may be employed with more or less skill. The discovery of Ulysses, for example, to his nurse, by means of his scar, is very different from his discovery, by the same means, to the herdsmen. For all those discoveries, in which the sign is produced by way of proof, are inartificial. Those which, like that in the washing of Ulysses, happen suddenly and casually, are better.
Second. Discoveries invented at pleasure, by the poet, and, on that account, still inartificial. For example: in the “Iphigenia,” Orestes, after having discovered his sister, discovers himself to her. She, indeed, is discovered by the letter, but Orestes by verbal proofs; and these are such as the poet chooses to make him produce, not such as arise from the circumstances of the fable. This kind of discovery, therefore, borders upon the fault of that first mentioned; for some of the things from which those proofs are drawn are even such as might have been actually produced as visible signs.
Another instance is the discovery by the sound of the shuttle in the “Tereus” of Sophocles.
Third. The discovery occasioned by memory; as when some recollection is excited by the view of a particular object. Thus, in the “Cyprians” of Dicæogenes, a discovery is produced by tears shed at the sight of a picture; and thus, in the tale of Alcinous, Ulysses, listening to the bard, recollects, weeps, and is discovered.
Fourth. The discovery occasioned by reasoning or inference; such as that in the “Choëphoræ”: “The person who is arrived resembles me—no one resembles me but Orestes—it must be he!” And that of Polyides the Sophist in his “Iphigenia”; for the conclusion of Orestes was natural. “It had been his sister’s lot to be sacrificed, and it was now his own!” That, also, in the “Tydeus” of Theodectes:—“He came to find his son, and he himself must perish!” And thus, the daughters of Phineus, in the tragedy named from them, viewing the place to which they were led, infer their fate:—“there they were to die, for there they were exposed!” There is also a compound sort of discovery, arising from false inference in the audience: as in “Ulysses the False Messenger,” he asserts that he shall know the bow, which he had not seen; the audience falsely infer that a discovery by that means will follow.
But, of all discoveries, the best is that which arises from the action itself, and in which a striking effect is produced by probable incidents. Such is that in the “Œdipus” of Sophocles, and that in the “Iphigenia”; for nothing more natural than her desire of conveying the letter. Such discoveries are the best, because they alone are effected without the help of invented proofs, or bracelets, etc.
Next to these are the discoveries by inference.
The poet, both when he plans and when he writes his tragedy, should put himself as much as possible in the place of a spectator; for by this means, seeing everything distinctly, as if present at the action, he will discern what is proper, and no inconsistencies will escape him. The fault objected to Carcinus is a proof of this. Amphiaraus had left the temple. This the poet, for want of conceiving the action to pass before his eyes, overlooked; but in the representation the audience was disgusted and the piece condemned.
In composing, the poet should even, as much as possible, be an actor; for by natural sympathy they are most persuasive and affecting who are under the influence of actual passion. We share the agitation of those who appear to be truly agitated; the anger of those who appear to be truly angry.
Hence it is that poetry demands either great natural quickness of parts or an enthusiasm allied to madness. By the first of these we mold ourselves with facility to the imitation of every form; by the other, transported out of ourselves, we become what we imagine.
When the poet invents a subject, he should first draw a general sketch of it, and afterwards give it the detail of its episodes and extend it. The general argument, for instance, of the “Iphigenia” should be considered in this way: “A virgin, on the point of being sacrificed, is imperceptibly conveyed away from the altar and transported to another country, where it was the custom to sacrifice all strangers to Diana. Of these rites she is appointed priestess. It happens, some time after, that her brother arrives there.” But why? Because an oracle had commanded him, for some reason exterior to the general plan. For what purpose? This also is exterior to the plan. “He arrives, is seized, and, at the instant that he is going to be sacrificed, the discovery is made.” And this may be, either in the way of Euripides, or like that of Polyides, by the natural reflection of Orestes, that “it was his fate also, as it had been his sister’s, to be sacrificed”; by which exclamation he is saved.
After this the poet, when he has given names to his characters, should proceed to the episodes of his action; and he must take care that these belong properly to the subject; like that of the madness of Orestes, which occasions his being taken, and his escape by means of the ablution. In dramatic poetry the episodes are short; but in the epic they are the means of drawing out the poem to its proper length. The general story of the “Odyssey,” for example, lies in a small compass. “A certain man is supposed to be absent from his own country for many years; he is persecuted by Neptune, deprived of all his companions, and left alone. At home his affairs are in disorder—the suitors of his wife dissipating his wealth and plotting the destruction of his son. Tossed by many tempests, he at length arrives, and, making himself known to some of his family, attacks his enemies, destroys them, and remains himself in safety.” This is the essential; the rest is episode.
Every tragedy consists of two parts—the complication and the development. The complication is often formed by incidents supposed prior to the action, and by a part also of those that are within the action; the rest form the development. I call complication all that is between the beginning of the piece and the last part, where the change of fortune commences; development all between the beginning of that change and the conclusion. Thus in the “Lynceus” of Theodectes the events antecedent to the action and the seizure of the child constitute the complication; the development is from the accusation of murder to the end.
There are four kinds of tragedy, deducible from so many parts, which have been mentioned. One kind is the complicated; where all depends on revolution and discovery. Another is the disastrous, such as those on the subject of “Ajax,” or “Ixion.” Another, the moral, as the “Phthiotides” and the “Peleus.” And, fourthly, the simple, such as the “Phorcides,” the “Prometheus,” and all those tragedies the scene of which is laid in the infernal regions.
It should be the poet’s aim to make himself master of all these manners; of as many of them, at least, as possible, and those the best: especially considering the captious criticism to which in these days he is exposed. For the public, having now seen different poets excel in each of these different kinds, expect every single poet to unite in himself and to surpass the peculiar excellences of them all.
One tragedy may justly be considered as the same with another, or different, not according as the subjects, but rather according as the complication and development are the same or different. Many poets, when they have complicated well, develop badly. They should endeavor to deserve equal applause in both.
We must also be attentive to what has been often mentioned, and not construct a tragedy upon an epic plan. By an epic plan I mean a fable composed of many fables; as if any one, for instance, should take the entire fable of the “Iliad” for the subject of a tragedy. In the epic poem the length of the whole admits of a proper magnitude in the parts; but in the drama the effect of such a plan is far different from what is expected. As a proof of this, those poets who have formed the whole of the destruction of Troy into a tragedy, instead of confining themselves (as Euripides, but not Æschylus, has done in the story of Niobe) to a part, have either been condemned in the representation or have contended without success. Even Agatho has failed on this account, and on this only; for in revolutions, and in actions also of the simple kind, these poets succeed wonderfully in what they aim at; and that is, the union of tragic effect with moral tendency. As when, for example, a character of great wisdom, but without integrity, is deceived, like Sisyphus, or a brave, but unjust man, conquered. Such events, as Agatho says, are probable, “as it is probable, in general, that many things should happen contrary to probability.”
The chorus should be considered as one of the persons in the drama; should be a part of the whole and a sharer in the action. Not as in Euripides, but as in Sophocles. As for other poets, their choral songs have no more connection with their subject than with that of any other tragedy, and hence they are now become detached pieces, inserted at pleasure; a practice first introduced by Agatho. Yet where is the difference between this arbitrary insertion of an ode and the transposition of a speech, or even of a whole episode, from one tragedy to another?
Of the other parts of tragedy enough has now been said. We are next to consider the diction and the sentiments.
For what concerns the sentiments we refer to the principles laid down in the books on rhetoric, for to that subject they more properly belong. The sentiments include whatever is the object of speech; as, for instance, to prove, to confute, to move the passions—pity, terror, anger, and the like; to amplify, or to diminish. But it is evident that, with respect to the things themselves also, when the poet would make them appear pitiable, or terrible, or great, or probable, he must draw from the same sources, with this difference only, that in the drama these things must appear to be such without being shown to be such, whereas in oratory they must be made to appear so by the speaker, and in consequence of what he says; otherwise, what need of an orator if they already appear so in themselves and not through his eloquence?
With respect to diction, one part of its theory is that which treats of the figures of speech, such as commanding, entreating, relating, menacing, interrogating, answering, and the like. But this belongs, properly, to the art of acting and to the professed masters of that kind. The poet’s knowledge or ignorance of these things cannot in any way materially affect the credit of his art. For who will suppose there is any justice in the cavil of Protagoras—that, in the words, “The wrath, O goddess, sing,” the poet, where he intended a prayer, had expressed a command; for he insists that to say, Do this, or do it not, is to command. This subject, therefore, we pass over, as belonging to an art distinct from that of poetry.
To all diction belong the following parts: the letter, the syllable, the conjunction, the noun, the verb, the article, the case, the discourse or speech.
1. A letter is an indivisible sound; yet not all such sounds are letters, but those only that are capable of forming an intelligible sound. For there are indivisible sounds of brute creatures: but no such sounds are called letters. Letters are of three kinds: vowels, semi-vowels, and mutes. The vowel is that which has a distinct sound without articulation, as a or o. The semivowel, that which has a distinct sound with articulation, as s and r. The mute, that which, with articulation, has yet no sound by itself; but, joined with one of those letters that have some sound, becomes audible, as g and d. These all differ from each other, as they are produced by different configurations, and in different parts of the mouth; as they are aspirated or smooth, long or short; as their tone is acute, grave, or intermediate: the detail of all which is the business of the metrical treatises.
2. A syllable is a sound without signification, composed of a mute and a vowel; for g r, without a, is not a syllable; with a, as g r a, it is. But these differences also are the subject of the metrical art.
3. A conjunction is a sound without signification,… of such a nature as, out of several sounds, each of them significant, to form one significant sound.
4. An article is a sound without signification, which marks the beginning or the end of a sentence, or distinguishes, as when we say, Τὸ φημὶ, or Τὸ περὶ, etc.
5. A noun is a sound composed of other sounds; significant, without expression of time, and of which no part is by itself significant; for even in double words the parts are not taken in the sense that separately belongs to them. Thus, in the word Theodorus, dorus is not significant.
6. A verb is a sound composed of other sounds; significant—with expression of time—and of which, as of the noun, no part is by itself significant. Thus, in the words, man, white, indication of time is not included; in the words, he walks, he walked, etc., it is included; the one expressing the present time, the other the past.
7. Cases belong to nouns and verbs. Some cases express relation, as, of, to, and the like; others number, as man, or men, etc. Others relate to action or pronunciation, as those of interrogation, of command, etc.; for ἐβάδισεν (did he go?) and βάδιζε (go) are verbal cases of that kind.
8. Discourse, or speech, is a sound significant composed of other sounds, some of which are significant by themselves; for all discourse is not composed of verbs and nouns—the definition of man, for instance. Discourse, or speech, may subsist without a verb; some significant part, however, it must contain: significant as the word Cleon is in “Cleon walks.”
A discourse or speech is one in two senses, either as it signifies one thing or several things made one by conjunction. Thus, the “Iliad” is one by conjunction, the definition of man by signifying one thing.
Of words, some are single—by which I mean composed of parts not significant—and some double; of which last some have one part significant and the other not significant, and some both parts significant. A word may also be triple, quadruple, etc., like many of those used by the Megaliotæ, as Hermocaïcoxanthus. Every word is either common, or foreign, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or invented, or extended, or contracted, or altered.
By common words I mean such as are in general and established use; by foreign, such as belong to a different language: so that the same word may evidently be both common and foreign, though not to the same people. The word Σιγύνον to the Cyprians is common, to us foreign.
A metaphorical word is a word transferred from its proper sense; either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from one species to another, or in the way of analogy.
1. From genus to species, as:—
| “Secure in yonder port my vessel stands.” |
2. From species to genus, as:—
| “to Ulysses | |
| A thousand generous deeds we owe.” |
3. From one species to another, as:—
Χαλκῶ ἀπὸ φυχὴν ἐρύσας | |
(The brazen falchion drew away his life.) |
Τάμ’ ἀτειρέϊ χαλκῶ | |
(Cut by the ruthless sword.) |
4. In the way of analogy—when, of four terms, the second bears the same relation to the first as the fourth to the third; in which case the fourth may be substituted for the second, and the second for the fourth. And sometimes the proper term is also introduced besides its relative term.
Thus, a cup bears the same relation to Bacchus as a shield to Mars. A shield, therefore, may be called the cup of Mars, and a cup the shield of Bacchus. Again, evening being to day what old age is to life, the evening may be called the old age of the day, and old age the evening of life; or, as Empedocles has expressed it, “Life’s setting sun.” It sometimes happens that there is no proper analogous term answering to the term borrowed; which yet may be used in the same manner, as if there were. For instance: to sow is the term appropriated to the action of dispersing seed upon the earth; but the dispersion of rays from the sun is expressed by no appropriated term; it is, however, with respect to the sun’s light, what sowing is with respect to seed. Hence the poet’s expression of the sun—
| “—sowing abroad | |
| His heaven-created flame.” |
An invented word is a word never before used by any one, but coined by the poet himself; for such, it appears, there are, as ἐρνύται for κέρατα, horns, or ὰρητήρ for ἱερεύς, a priest.
A word is extended, when for the proper vowel a longer is substituted, or a syllable is inserted. A word is contracted when some part of it is retrenched. Thus, πόληος for πόλεως, and Πηληιάδεω for Πηλείδου, are extended words; contracted, such as κρι, and δω, and οφ, e.g.—
| —μία γίνδεται ἀμφοτερων ὀψ |
An altered word is a word of which part remains in its usual state, and part is of the poet’s making: as in,
| δεξιτερὸν κατὰ μαζόν, |
Further, nouns are divided into masculine, feminine, and neuter. The masculine are those which end in ν, ρ, σ, or in some letter compounded of σ and a mute; these are two, φ and ξ. The feminine are those which end in the vowels always long, as η or ω; or in α, of the doubtful vowels: so that the masculine and the feminine terminations are equal in number; for as to φ and ξ, they are the same with terminations in σ. No noun ends in a mute or a short vowel. There are but three ending in ι: μέλι, κόμμι, πέπερι; five ending in υ: πῶυ, νάπυ, γόνυ, δόρυ, ἄστυ.
The neuter terminate in these two last-mentioned vowels, and in ν and σ.
The excellence of diction consists in being perspicuous without being mean. The most perspicuous is that which is composed of common words; but, at the same time, it is mean. Such is the poetry of Cleophon and that of Sthenelus. That language, on the contrary, is elevated and remote from the vulgar idiom which employs unusual words; by unusual I mean foreign, metaphorical, extended,—all, in short, that are not common words. Yet, should a poet compose his diction entirely of such words, the result would be either an enigma or a barbarous jargon: an enigma, if composed of metaphors; a barbarous jargon, if composed of foreign words. For the essence of an enigma consists of putting together things apparently inconsistent and impossible, and, at the same time, saying nothing but what is true. Now this cannot be effected by the mere arrangement of the words; by the metaphorical use of them, it may; as in this enigma:—
| “A man I once beheld (and wondering viewed), | |
| Who on another brass with fire had glued.” |
With respect to barbarism, it arises from the use of foreign words. A judicious intermixture is, therefore, requisite.
Thus the foreign word, the metaphorical, the ornamental, and the other species before mentioned, will raise the language above the vulgar idiom, and common words will give it perspicuity. But nothing contributes more considerably to produce clearness, without vulgarity of diction, than extensions, contractions, and alterations of words: for here, the variation from the proper form being unusual, will give elevation to the expression; and, at the same time, what is retained of usual speech will give it clearness. It is without reason, therefore, that some critics have censured these modes of speech, and ridiculed the poet for the use of them; as old Euclid did, objecting that “versification would be an easy business, if it were permitted to lengthen words at pleasure,”—and then giving a burlesque example of that sort of diction.
Undoubtedly, when these licenses appear to be thus purposely used, the thing becomes ridiculous. In the employment of all the species of unusual words, moderation is necessary: for metaphors, foreign words, or any of the others, improperly used, and with a design to be ridiculous, would produce the same effect. But how great a difference is made by a proper and temperate use of such words may be seen in heroic verse. Let any one only substitute common words in the place of the metaphorical, the foreign, and others of the same kind, and he will be convinced of the truth of what I say. For example: the same iambic verse occurs in Æschylus and in Euripides; but, by means of a single alteration—the substitution of a foreign for a common and usual word, one of these verses appears beautiful, the other ordinary. For Æschylus, in his “Philoctetes,” says:—
| “Lo! on my foot a wasting ulcer feeds”; |
The same difference will appear, if, in this verse,
| Νῦν δέ μ’ ἐὼν ὀλίγος τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καὶ ἄκικυς, |
| Νῦν δέ μ’ ἐὼν μικρός τε καὶ ἀσθενικὸς καὶ ἀειδής. |
| Δἵφρον ὰεικέλιον καταθεὶς ὀλίγην τε τράπεζαν, |
| Δἵφρον μοχθηρὸν καταθεὶς, μικράν τε τράπεζαν. |
Ariphrades also endeavored to throw ridicule upon the tragic poets, for making use of such expressions as no one would think of using in common speech—as δωμάτων ἄπο, instead of ἀπὸ δωμάτων; and σέθεν, and ἐγὼ δέ νιν, and Ἀχιλλέωζ πέρι, instead of περὶ Ἀχιλλέωζ, etc. Now it is precisely owing to their being not in common use that such expressions have the effect of giving elevation to the diction. But this he did not know.
To employ with propriety any of these modes of speech—the double words, the foreign, etc.—is a great excellence. But the greatest of all is to be happy in the use of metaphor; for it is this alone which cannot be acquired, and which, consisting in a quick discernment of resemblances, is a certain mark of genius.
Of the different kinds of words, the double are best suited to dithyrambic poetry, the foreign to heroic, the metaphorical to iambic. In heroic poetry, indeed, they have all their place; but to iambic verse, which is, as much as may be, an imitation of common speech, those words which are used in common speech are best adapted, and such are—the common, the metaphorical, and the ornamental.
Concerning tragedy and the imitation by action, enough has now been said.
WITH respect to that species of poetry which imitates by narration and in hexameter verse, it is obvious that the fable ought to be dramatically constructed, like that of tragedy, and that it should have for its subject one entire and perfect action, having a beginning, a middle, and an end; so that, forming, like an animal, a complete whole, it may afford its proper pleasure, widely differing in its construction from history, which necessarily treats not of one action, but of one time and of all the events that happened to one person, or to many, during that time—events the relation of which to each other is merely casual. For, as the naval action at Salamis, and the battle with the Carthaginians in Sicily, were events of the same time, unconnected by any relation to a common end or purpose, so also, in successive events, we sometimes see one thing follow another without being connected to it by such relation. And this is the practice of the generality of poets. Even in this, therefore, as we have before observed, the superiority of Homer’s genius is apparent—that he did not attempt to bring the whole war, though an entire action with beginning and end, into his poem. It would have been too vast an object, and not easily comprehended in one view; or had he forced it into a moderate compass, it would have been perplexed by its variety. Instead of this, selecting one part only of the war, he has from the rest introduced many episodes—such as the catalogue of the ships, and others—by which he has diversified his poem. Other poets take for their subject the actions of one person or of one period of time; or an action which, though one, is composed of too many parts. Thus the author of the “Cypriacs” and of the “Little Iliad.” Hence it is that the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” each of them furnishes matter for one tragedy, two at most; but from the “Cypriacs” many may be taken, and from the a Little Iliad” more than eight, as the Contest for the Armor, Philoctetes, Neoptolemus, Eurypylus, the Vagrant, the Spartan Women, the Fall of Troy, the Return of the Fleet, Sinon, and the Trojan Women.
Again, the epic poem must also agree with the tragic as to its kinds—it must be simple, or complicated, moral, or disastrous. Its parts also, setting aside music and decoration, are the same, for it requires revolutions, discoveries, and disasters, and it must be furnished with proper sentiments and diction, of all which Homer gave both the first and the most perfect example. Thus, of his two poems, the “Iliad” is of the simple and disastrous kind, the “Odyssey” complicated (for it abounds throughout with discoveries) and moral. Add to this, that in language and sentiments he has surpassed all poets.
The epic poem differs from tragedy in the length of its plan and in its metre.
With respect to length, a sufficient measure has already been assigned. It should be such as to admit of our comprehending at one view the beginning and the end; and this would be the case if the epic poem were reduced from its ancient length, so as not to exceed that of such a number of tragedies as are performed successively at one hearing. But there is a circumstance in the nature of epic poetry which affords it peculiar latitude in the extension of its plan. It is not in the power of tragedy to imitate several different actions performed at the same time; it can imitate only that one which occupies the stage, and in which the actors are employed. But the epic imitation, being narrative, admits of many such simultaneous incidents properly related to the subject, which swell the poem to a considerable size.
And this gives it a great advantage, both in point of magnificence, and also as it enables the poet to relieve his hearer and diversify his work by a variety of dissimilar episodes; for it is to the satiety naturally arising from similarity that tragedies frequently owe their ill success.
With respect to metre, the heroic is established by experience as the most proper; so that should any one compose a narrative poem in any other, or in a variety of metres, he would be thought guilty of a great impropriety. For the heroic is the gravest and most majestic of all measures; and hence it is that it peculiarly admits the use of foreign and metaphorical expressions. For in this respect also, the narrative imitation is abundant and various beyond the rest. But the iambic and trochaic have more motion; the latter being adapted to dance, the other to action and business. To mix these different metres, as Chæremon has done, would be still more absurd. No one, therefore, has ever attempted to compose a poem of an extended plan in any other than heroic verse; nature itself, as we before observed, pointing out the proper choice.
Among the many just claims of Homer to our praise, this is one, that he is the only poet who seems to have understood what part in his poem it was proper for him to take himself. The poet, in his own person, should speak as little as possible, for he is not then the imitator. But other poets, ambitious to figure throughout themselves, imitate but little, and seldom. Homer, after a few preparatory lines, immediately introduces a man, a woman, or some other character; for all have their character—nowhere are the manners neglected.
The surprising is necessary in tragedy; but the epic poem goes further, and admits even the improbable and incredible, from which the highest degree of the surprising results, because there the action is not seen. The circumstances, for example, of the pursuit of Hector by Achilles are such as, upon the stage, would appear ridiculous—the Grecian army standing still and taking no part in the pursuit, and Achilles making signs to them, by the motion of his head, not to interfere. But in the epic poem this escapes our notice. Now the wonderful always pleases, as is evident from the additions which men always make in relating anything in order to gratify the hearers.
It is from Homer principally that other poets have learned the art of feigning well. It consists in a sort of sophism. When one thing is observed to be constantly accompanied or followed by another, men are apt to conclude that if the latter is or has happened, the former must also be or must have happened. But this is an error,… for, knowing the latter to be true, the mind is betrayed into the false inference that the first is true also.
The poet should prefer impossibilities which appear probable to such things as, though possible, appear improbable. Far from producing a plan made up of improbable incidents, he should, if possible, admit no one circumstance of that kind; or if he does it should be exterior to the action itself, like the ignorance of Œdipus concerning the manner in which Laius died; not within the drama, like the narrative of what happened at the Pythian games in the “Electra”; or in “The Mysians,” the man who travels from Tegea to Mysia without speaking. To say that without these circumstances the fable would have been destroyed is a ridiculous excuse. The poet should take care, from the first, not to construct his fable in that manner. If, however, anything of this kind has been admitted, and yet is made to pass under some color of probability, it may be allowed, though even in itself absurd. Thus, in the “Odyssey” the improbable account of the manner in which Ulysses was landed upon the shore of Ithaca is such as, in the hands of an ordinary poet, would evidently have been intolerable. But here the absurdity is concealed under the various beauties of other kinds, with which the poet has embellished it.
The diction should be most labored in the idle parts of the poem—those in which neither manners nor sentiments prevail; for the manners and the sentiments are only obscured by a too splendid diction.
WITH respect to critical objections and the answers to them, the number and nature of the different sources from which they may be drawn will be clearly understood, if we consider them in the following manner:—
1. The poet, being an imitator like the painter or any other artist of that kind, must necessarily, when he imitates, have in view one of these three objects: he must represent things such as they were or are, or such as they are said to be and believed to be, or such as they should be.
2. Again, all this he is to express in words, either common or foreign and metaphorical; or varied by some of those many modifications and peculiarities of language which are the privilege of poets.
3. To this we must add, that what is right in the poetic art is a distinct consideration from what is right in the political or any other art. The faults of poetry are of two kinds, essential and accidental. If the poet has undertaken to imitate without talents for imitation, his poetry will be essentially faulty. But if he is right in applying himself to poetic imitation, yet in imitating is occasionally wrong,—as if a horse, for example, were represented moving both his right legs at once, or, if he has committed mistakes, or described things impossible, with respect to other arts, that of physic, for instance, or any other,—all such faults, whatever they may be, are not essential, but accidental, faults in the poetry.
To the foregoing considerations, then, we must have recourse, in order to obviate the doubts and objections of the critics.
For, in the first place, suppose the poet to have represented things impossible with respect to some other art. This is certainly a fault. Yet it may be an excusable fault, provided the end of the poet’s art be more effectually obtained by it—that is, according to what has already been said of that end, if, by this means, that or any other part of the poem is made to produce a more striking effect. The pursuit of Hector is an instance. If, indeed, this end might as well, or nearly as well, have been attained without departing from the principles of the particular art in question, the fault, in that case, could not be justified, since faults of every kind should, if possible, be avoided.
Still, we are to consider further whether a fault be in things essential to the poetic art or foreign and incidental to it; for it is a far more pardonable fault to be ignorant, for instance, that a hind has no horns than to paint one badly.
Further, if it be objected to the poet that he has not represented things conformably to truth, he may answer that he has represented them as they should be. This was the answer of Sophocles, that “he drew mankind such as they should be; Euripides, such as they are.” And this is the proper answer.
But if the poet has represented things in neither of these ways, he may answer that he has represented them as they are said and believed to be. Of this kind are the poetical descriptions of the gods. It cannot, perhaps, be said that they are either what is best or what is true; but, as Xenophanes says, opinions “taken up at random,” these are things, however, not “clearly known.”
Again, what the poet has exhibited is perhaps, not what is best, but it is the fact; as in the passage about the arms of the sleeping soldiers:—
| “fixed upright in the earth | |
| Their spears stood by.” |
In order to judge whether what is said or done by any character be well or ill, we are not to consider that speech or action alone; whether in itself it be good or bad, but also by whom it is spoken or done, to whom, at what time, in what manner, or for what end; whether, for instance, in order to obtain some greater good, or to avoid some greater evil.
For the solution of some objections we must have recourse to the diction. For example:—
οὐρηας μὲν πρῶτον— | |
On mules and dogs the infection first began. | |
—Pope. |
So also in the passage where it is said of Dolon:—
εἶδος μὲν ἔην καόςκ | |
(Of form unhappy.) |
The meaning is not that his person was deformed, but that his face was ugly; for the Cretans use the word εὐειδὲς, well-formed, to express a beautiful face.
Again:—
| ζωρότερον δὲ κέραίρε. |
Here the meaning is not “mix it strong,” as for intemperate drinkers, but “mix it quickly.”
The following passages may be defended by metaphor:—
| Now pleasing sleep had sealed each mortal eye; | |
| Stretched in the tents the Grecian leaders lie; | |
| The immortals slumbered on their thrones above. | |
—Pope. |
Again:—
| “When on the Trojan plain his anxious eye | |
| Watchful he fixed.” |
And—
| Αὐλῶν συρίγγων θ’ ὁμαδόν. |
For “all” is put metaphorically instead of “many,” all being a species of many.
Here also:—
| “The bear alone | |
| Still shines exalted in th’ etherial plain, | |
| Nor bathes his flaming forehead in the main.” |
“Alone” is metaphorical: the most remarkable thing in any kind we speak of as the only one.
We may have recourse also,
3. To accent, as the following passage—
| δίδομεν δέ οἱ— |
And this—τὸ μὲν οὐ καταπύθεται ὄμβρῳ—were defended by Hippias of Thasos.
4. To punctuation, as in this passage of Empedocles:—
Αῖφα δὲ θνήτ’ ἐφὑοντο τὰ πρὶν πρὶν μάθον ἀθάνατ’ εῖναι, | |
Ζωρά τε πρὶν ακρητα, |
| (Things, before immortal, | |
| Mortal became, and mixed before unmixed, | |
| Their courses changed.) |
5. To ambiguity, as in παρῷχηκεν δε πλέων νύξ, where the word πλέων is ambiguous.
6. To customary speech: thus, wine mixed with water, or whatever is poured out to drink as wine, is called οἶνος, wine; hence Ganymede is said, Διι οἰνοχοεύειν, to “pour the wine to Jove,” though wine is not the liquor of the gods. This, however, may also be defended by metaphor.
Thus, again, artificers in iron are called Χαλκεις, literally, braziers. Of this kind is the expression of the poet,—Κνημὶς νεοτεύκτου κασσιτέριο.
7. When a word, in any passage, appears to express a contradiction, we must consider in how many different senses it may there be taken. Here, for instance:—
—τῃ ‘ρ ἔσχετο χάλκεον ἔγχος— | |
There stuck the lance.—Pope. |
Of how many different senses a word is capable may best be discovered by considering the different senses that are opposed to it.
We may also say, with Glauco, that some critics first take things for granted without foundation, and then argue from these previous decisions of their own; and, having once pronounced their judgment, condemn, as an inconsistence, whatever is contrary to their preconceived opinion. Of this kind is the cavil of the critics concerning Icarius. Taking it for granted that he was a Lacedæmonian, they thence infer the absurdity of supposing Telemachus not to have seen him when he went to Lacedæmon. But, perhaps, what the Cephalenians say may be the truth. They assert that the wife of Ulysses was of their country, and that the name of her father was not Icarius, but Icadius. The objection itself, therefore, is probably founded on a mistake.
The impossible, in general, is to be justified by referring, either to the end of poetry itself, or to what is best, or to opinion.
For, with respect to poetry, impossibilities, rendered probable, are preferable to things improbable, though possible.
With respect also to what is best, the imitations of poetry should resemble the paintings of Zeuxis; the example should be more perfect than nature.
To opinion, or what is commonly said to be, may be referred even such things as are improbable and absurd; and it may also be said that events of that kind are, sometimes, not really improbable; since “it is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability.”
When things are said which appear to be contradictory, we must examine them as we do in logical confutation: whether the same thing be spoken of; whether in the same respect, and in the same sense.
Improbability, and vicious manners, when excused by no necessity, are just objects of critical censure. Such is the improbability in the “Ægeus” of Euripides, and the vicious character of Menelaus in his “Orestes.”
Thus, the sources from which the critics draw their objections are five: they object to things as impossible, or improbable, or of immoral tendency, or contradictory, or contrary to technical accuracy. The answers, which are twelve in number, may be deduced from what has been said.
IT may be inquired, further, which of the two imitations, the epic, or the tragic, deserves the preference.
If that which is the least vulgar, or popular, of the two, be the best, and that be such which is calculated for the better sort of spectators—the imitation which extends to every circumstance must, evidently, be the most vulgar, or popular; for there the imitators have recourse to every kind of motion and gesticulation, as if the audience, without the aid of action, were incapable of understanding them; like bad flute-players, who whirl themselves round when they would imitate the motion of the discus, and pull the coryphæus when Scylla is the subject. Such is tragedy. It may also be compared to what the modern actors are in the estimation of their predecessors; for Myniscus used to call Callipides, on account of his intemperate action, the ape; and Tyndarus was censured on the same account. What these performers are with respect to their predecessors, the tragic imitation, when entire, is to the epic. The latter, then, it is urged, addresses itself to hearers of the better sort, to whom the addition of gesture is superfluous: but tragedy is for the people; and being, therefore, the most vulgar kind of imitation, is evidently the inferior.
But now, in the first place, this censure falls, not upon the poet’s art, but upon that of the actor; for the gesticulation may be equally labored in the recitation of an epic poem, as it was by Sosistratus; and in singing, as by Mnasitheus, the Opuntian.
Again, all gesticulation is not to be condemned; since even all dancing is not, but such only as is unbecoming—such as was objected to Callipides, and is now objected to others, whose gestures resemble those of immodest women.
Further, tragedy, as well as the epic, is capable of producing its effect even without action; we can judge of it perfectly by reading. If, then, in other respects, tragedy be superior, it is sufficient that the fault here objected is not essential to it.
Tragedy has the advantage in the following respects: It possesses all that is possessed by the epic; it might even adopt its metre: and to this it makes no inconsiderable addition in the music and the decoration; by the latter of which the illusion is heightened, and the pleasure arising from the action is rendered more sensible and striking.
It has the advantage of greater clearness and distinctness of impression, as well in reading as in representation.
It has also that of attaining the end of its imitation in a shorter compass; for the effect is more pleasurable when produced by a short and close series of impressions than when weakened by diffusion through a long extent of time, as the “Œdipus” of Sophocles, for example, would be if it were drawn out to the length of the “Iliad.”
Further, there is less unity in all epic imitation, as appears from this—that any epic poem will furnish matter for several tragedies. For, supposing the poet to choose a fable strictly one, the consequence must be either that his poem, if proportionably contracted, will appear curtailed and defective, or, if extended to the usual length, will become weak, and, as it were, diluted. If, on the other hand, we suppose him to employ several fables—that is, a fable composed of several actions—his imitation is no longer strictly one. The “Iliad,” for example, and the “Odyssey” contain many such subordinate parts, each of which has a certain magnitude and unity of its own; yet is the construction of those poems as perfect and as nearly approaching to the imitation of a single action, as possible.
If, then, tragedy be superior to the epic in all these respects, and also in the peculiar end at which it aims (for each species ought to afford, not any sort of pleasure indiscriminately, but such only as has been pointed out), it evidently follows that tragedy, as it attains more effectually the end of the art itself, must deserve the preference.
And thus much concerning tragic and epic poetry in general and their several species, the number and the differences of their parts, the causes of their beauties and their defects, the censures of critics, and the principles on which they are to be answered.
