{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"poetics","title":"Poetics","author":"Aristotle","tradition":"greek","language":"grc","genre":"literary theory","period":"c. 335 BCE","source_url":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/a065c359aab33c33bd17ddc2cac7d27fdc9cd870/data/tlg0086/tlg034/tlg0086.tlg034.perseus-grc2.xml","original":{"text":"### Chapter 1\n\n[Bekker 1447a]\n[Bekker 1447a line 8]\nπερὶ ποιητικῆς αὐτῆς τε καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν αὐτῆς, ἥν τινα δύναμιν ἕκαστον ἔχει, καὶ πῶς δεῖ συνίστασθαι τοὺς μύθους\n[Bekker 1447a line 10]\nεἰ μέλλει καλῶς ἕξειν ἡ ποίησις, ἔτι δὲ ἐκ πόσων καὶ ποίων ἐστὶ μορίων, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα τῆς αὐτῆς ἐστι μεθόδου, λέγωμεν ἀρξάμενοι κατὰ φύσιν πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῶν πρώτων.\nἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητικὴ καὶ τῆς\n[Bekker 1447a line 15]\nαὐλητικῆς ἡ πλείστη καὶ κιθαριστικῆς πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον·\nδιαφέρουσι δὲ ἀλλήλων τρισίν, ἢ γὰρ τῷ ἐν ἑτέροις μιμεῖσθαι ἢ τῷ ἕτερα ἢ τῷ ἑτέρως καὶ μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον.\nὥσπερ γὰρ καὶ χρώμασι καὶ σχήμασι πολλὰ μιμοῦνταί τινες ἀπεικάζοντες (οἱ μὲν\n[Bekker 1447a line 20]\nδιὰ τέχνης οἱ δὲ διὰ συνηθείας), ἕτεροι δὲ διὰ τῆς φωνῆς, οὕτω κἀν ταῖς εἰρημέναις τέχναις ἅπασαι μὲν ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν ἐν ῥυθμῷ καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἁρμονίᾳ, τούτοις δ’ ἢ χωρὶς ἢ μεμιγμένοις·\nοἷον ἁρμονίᾳ μὲν καὶ ῥυθμῷ χρώμεναι μόνον ἥ τε αὐλητικὴ καὶ ἡ κιθαριστικὴ κἂν εἴ τινες\n[Bekker 1447a line 25]\nἕτεραι τυγχάνωσιν οὖσαι τοιαῦται τὴν δύναμιν, οἷον ἡ τῶν συρίγγων,\nαὐτῷ δὲ τῷ ῥυθμῷ χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ τῶν ὀρχηστῶν (καὶ γὰρ οὗτοι διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις)·\nἡ δὲ μόνον τοῖς λόγοις ψιλοῖς καὶ ἡ τοῖς μέτροις καὶ τούτοις\n[Bekker 1447b]\n[Bekker 1447b line 8]\nεἴτε μιγνῦσα μετ’ ἀλλήλων εἴθ’ ἑνί τινι γένει χρωμένη τῶν μέτρων ἀνώνυμοι τυγχάνουσι μέχρι τοῦ νῦν·\nοὐδὲν γὰρ ἂν\n[Bekker 1447b line 10]\nἔχοιμεν ὀνομάσαι κοινὸν τοὺς Σώφρονος καὶ Ξενάρχου μίμους καὶ τοὺς Σωκρατικοὺς λόγους\nοὐδὲ εἴ τις διὰ τριμέτρων ἢ ἐλεγείων ἢ τῶν ἄλλων τινῶν τῶν τοιούτων ποιοῖτο τὴν μίμησιν.\nπλὴν οἱ ἄνθρωποί γε συνάπτοντες τῷ μέτρῳ τὸ ποιεῖν ἐλεγειοποιοὺς τοὺς δὲ ἐποποιοὺς ὀνομάζουσιν, οὐχ ὡς\n[Bekker 1447b line 15]\nκατὰ τὴν μίμησιν ποιητὰς ἀλλὰ κοινῇ κατὰ τὸ μέτρον προσαγορεύοντες·\nκαὶ γὰρ ἂν ἰατρικὸν ἢ φυσικόν τι διὰ τῶν μέτρων ἐκφέρωσιν, οὕτω καλεῖν εἰώθασιν· οὐδὲν δὲ κοινόν ἐστιν Ὁμήρῳ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ πλὴν τὸ μέτρον, διὸ τὸν μὲν ποιητὴν δίκαιον καλεῖν, τὸν δὲ φυσιολόγον μᾶλλον ἢ\n[Bekker 1447b line 20]\nποιητήν·\nὁμοίως δὲ κἂν εἴ τις ἅπαντα τὰ μέτρα μιγνύων ποιοῖτο τὴν μίμησιν καθάπερ Χαιρήμων ἐποίησε Κένταυρον μικτὴν ῥαψῳδίαν ἐξ ἁπάντων τῶν μέτρων, καὶ ποιητὴν προσαγορευτέον. περὶ μὲν οὖν τούτων διωρίσθω τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον.\nεἰσὶ δέ τινες αἳ πᾶσι χρῶνται τοῖς\n[Bekker 1447b line 25]\nεἰρημένοις, λέγω δὲ οἷον ῥυθμῷ καὶ μέλει καὶ μέτρῳ, ὥσπερ ἥ τε τῶν διθυραμβικῶν ποίησις καὶ ἡ τῶν νόμων καὶ ἥ τε τραγῳδία καὶ ἡ κωμῳδία· διαφέρουσι δὲ ὅτι αἱ μὲν ἅμα πᾶσιν αἱ δὲ κατὰ μέρος.\nταύτας μὲν οὖν λέγω τὰς διαφορὰς τῶν τεχνῶν ἐν οἷς ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν.\n\n### Chapter 2\n\n[Bekker 1448a]\n[Bekker 1448a line 1]\nἐπεὶ δὲ μιμοῦνται οἱ μιμούμενοι πράττοντας, ἀνάγκη δὲ τούτους ἢ σπουδαίους ἢ φαύλους εἶναι (τὰ γὰρ ἤθη σχεδὸν ἀεὶ τούτοις ἀκολουθεῖ μόνοις, κακίᾳ γὰρ καὶ ἀρετῇ τὰ ἤθη διαφέρουσι πάντες), ἤτοι βελτίονας ἢ καθ’ ἡμᾶς ἢ χείρονας\n[Bekker 1448a line 5]\nἢ καὶ τοιούτους, ὥσπερ οἱ γραφεῖς·\nΠολύγνωτος μὲν γὰρ κρείττους, Παύσων δὲ χείρους, Διονύσιος δὲ ὁμοίους εἴκαζεν.\nδῆλον δὲ ὅτι καὶ τῶν λεχθεισῶν ἑκάστη μιμήσεων ἕξει ταύτας τὰς διαφορὰς καὶ ἔσται ἑτέρα τῷ ἕτερα μιμεῖσθαι τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον.\nκαὶ γὰρ ἐν ὀρχήσει καὶ αὐλήσει καὶ\n[Bekker 1448a line 10]\nκιθαρίσει ἔστι γενέσθαι ταύτας τὰς ἀνομοιότητας,\nκαὶ περὶ τοὺς λόγους δὲ καὶ τὴν ψιλομετρίαν, οἷον Ὅμηρος μὲν βελτίους, Κλεοφῶν δὲ ὁμοίους, Ἡγήμων δὲ ὁ Θάσιος ὁ τὰς παρῳδίας ποιήσας πρῶτος καὶ Νικοχάρης ὁ τὴν Δειλιάδα χείρους·\nὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τοὺς διθυράμβους καὶ περὶ τοὺς\n[Bekker 1448a line 15]\nνόμους, ὥσπερ † γᾶς † Κύκλωπας Τιμόθεος καὶ Φιλόξενος μιμήσαιτο ἄν τις.\nἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν διέστηκεν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ χείρους ἡ δὲ βελτίους μιμεῖσθαι βούλεται τῶν νῦν.\n\n### Chapter 3\n\nἔτι δὲ τούτων τρίτη διαφορὰ τὸ ὡς ἕκαστα τούτων\n[Bekker 1448a line 20]\nμιμήσαιτο ἄν τις.\nκαὶ γὰρ ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ μιμεῖσθαι ἔστιν ὁτὲ μὲν ἀπαγγέλλοντα, ἢ ἕτερόν τι γιγνόμενον ὥσπερ Ὅμηρος ποιεῖ ἢ ὡς τὸν αὐτὸν καὶ μὴ μεταβάλλοντα, ἢ πάντας ὡς πράττοντας καὶ ἐνεργοῦντας † τοὺς μιμουμένους †.\nἐν τρισὶ δὴ ταύταις διαφοραῖς ἡ μίμησίς ἐστιν,\n[Bekker 1448a line 25]\nὡς εἴπομεν κατ’ ἀρχάς, ἐν οἷς τε καὶ ἃ καὶ ὥς.\nὥστε τῇ μὲν ὁ αὐτὸς ἂν εἴη μιμητὴς Ὁμήρῳ Σοφοκλῆς, μιμοῦνται γὰρ ἄμφω σπουδαίους, τῇ δὲ Ἀριστοφάνει, πράττοντας γὰρ μιμοῦνται καὶ δρῶντας ἄμφω. ὅθεν καὶ δράματα καλεῖσθαί τινες αὐτά φασιν, ὅτι μιμοῦνται δρῶντας.\nδιὸ καὶ\n[Bekker 1448a line 30]\nἀντιποιοῦνται τῆς τε τραγῳδίας καὶ τῆς κωμῳδίας οἱ Δωριεῖς (τῆς μὲν γὰρ κωμῳδίας οἱ Μεγαρεῖς οἵ τε ἐνταῦθα ὡς ἐπὶ τῆς παρ’ αὐτοῖς δημοκρατίας γενομένης καὶ οἱ ἐκ Σικελίας, ἐκεῖθεν γὰρ ἦν Ἐπίχαρμος ὁ ποιητὴς πολλῷ πρότερος ὢν Χιωνίδου καὶ Μάγνητος· καὶ τῆς τραγῳδίας ἔνιοι\n[Bekker 1448a line 35]\nτῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ) ποιούμενοι τὰ ὀνόματα σημεῖον·\nαὐτοὶ μὲν γὰρ κώμας τὰς περιοικίδας καλεῖν φασιν, Ἀθηναίους δὲ δήμους, ὡς κωμῳδοὺς οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ κωμάζειν λεχθέντας ἀλλὰ τῇ κατὰ κώμας πλάνῃ ἀτιμαζομένους ἐκ τοῦ ἄστεως·\n[Bekker 1448b]\n[Bekker 1448b line 1]\nκαὶ τὸ ποιεῖν αὐτοὶ μὲν δρᾶν, Ἀθηναίους δὲ πράττειν προσαγορεύειν.\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν διαφορῶν καὶ πόσαι καὶ τίνες τῆς μιμήσεως εἰρήσθω ταῦτα.\n\n### Chapter 4\n\nἐοίκασι δὲ γεννῆσαι μὲν ὅλως τὴν ποιητικὴν αἰτίαι\n[Bekker 1448b line 5]\nδύο τινὲς καὶ αὗται φυσικαί.\nτό τε γὰρ μιμεῖσθαι σύμφυτον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐκ παίδων ἐστὶ καὶ τούτῳ διαφέρουσι τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ὅτι μιμητικώτατόν ἐστι καὶ τὰς μαθήσεις ποιεῖται διὰ μιμήσεως τὰς πρώτας, καὶ τὸ χαίρειν τοῖς μιμήμασι πάντας.\nσημεῖον δὲ τούτου, τὸ συμβαῖνον\n[Bekker 1448b line 10]\nἐπὶ τῶν ἔργων· ἃ γὰρ αὐτὰ λυπηρῶς ὁρῶμεν, τούτων τὰς εἰκόνας τὰς μάλιστα ἠκριβωμένας χαίρομεν θεωροῦντες, οἷον θηρίων τε μορφὰς τῶν ἀτιμοτάτων καὶ νεκρῶν.\nαἴτιον δὲ καὶ τούτου, ὅτι μανθάνειν οὐ μόνον τοῖς φιλοσόφοις ἥδιστον ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὁμοίως, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ βραχὺ\n[Bekker 1448b line 15]\nκοινωνοῦσιν αὐτοῦ.\nδιὰ γὰρ τοῦτο χαίρουσι τὰς εἰκόνας ὁρῶντες, ὅτι συμβαίνει θεωροῦντας μανθάνειν καὶ συλλογίζεσθαι τί ἕκαστον, οἷον ὅτι οὗτος ἐκεῖνος·\nἐπεὶ ἐὰν μὴ τύχῃ προεωρακώς, οὐχ ᾗ μίμημα ποιήσει τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν ἀπεργασίαν ἢ τὴν χροιὰν ἢ διὰ τοιαύτην τινὰ ἄλλην αἰτίαν.\n[Bekker 1448b line 20]\nκατὰ φύσιν δὲ ὄντος ἡμῖν τοῦ μιμεῖσθαι καὶ τῆς ἁρμονίας καὶ τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ (τὰ γὰρ μέτρα ὅτι μόρια τῶν ῥυθμῶν ἐστι φανερὸν) ἐξ ἀρχῆς οἱ πεφυκότες πρὸς αὐτὰ μάλιστα κατὰ μικρὸν προάγοντες ἐγέννησαν τὴν ποίησιν ἐκ τῶν αὐτοσχεδιασμάτων.\nδιεσπάσθη δὲ κατὰ τὰ οἰκεῖα ἤθη ἡ ποίησις·\n[Bekker 1448b line 25]\nοἱ μὲν γὰρ σεμνότεροι τὰς καλὰς ἐμιμοῦντο πράξεις καὶ τὰς τῶν τοιούτων, οἱ δὲ εὐτελέστεροι τὰς τῶν φαύλων, πρῶτον ψόγους ποιοῦντες, ὥσπερ ἕτεροι ὕμνους καὶ ἐγκώμια.\nτῶν μὲν οὖν πρὸ Ὁμήρου οὐδενὸς ἔχομεν εἰπεῖν τοιοῦτον ποίημα, εἰκὸς δὲ εἶναι πολλούς,\nἀπὸ δὲ Ὁμήρου ἀρξαμένοις\n[Bekker 1448b line 30]\nἔστιν, οἷον ἐκείνου ὁ Μαργίτης καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα. ἐν οἷς κατὰ τὸ ἁρμόττον καὶ τὸ ἰαμβεῖον ἦλθε μέτρον—διὸ καὶ ἰαμβεῖον καλεῖται νῦν, ὅτι ἐν τῷ μέτρῳ τούτῳ ἰάμβιζον ἀλλήλους.\nκαὶ ἐγένοντο τῶν παλαιῶν οἱ μὲν ἡρωικῶν οἱ δὲ ἰάμβων ποιηταί.\nὥσπερ δὲ καὶ τὰ σπουδαῖα μάλιστα ποιητὴς Ὅμηρος\n[Bekker 1448b line 35]\nἦν (μόνος γὰρ οὐχ ὅτι εὖ ἀλλὰ καὶ μιμήσεις δραματικὰς ἐποίησεν), οὕτως καὶ τὸ τῆς κωμῳδίας σχῆμα πρῶτος ὑπέδειξεν, οὐ ψόγον ἀλλὰ τὸ γελοῖον δραματοποιήσας· ὁ γὰρ Μαργίτης ἀνάλογον ἔχει, ὥσπερ Ἰλιὰς\n[Bekker 1449a]\n[Bekker 1449a line 1]\nκαὶ ἡ Ὀδύσσεια πρὸς τὰς τραγῳδίας, οὕτω καὶ οὗτος πρὸς τὰς κωμῳδίας.\nπαραφανείσης δὲ τῆς τραγῳδίας καὶ κωμῳδίας οἱ ἐφ’ ἑκατέραν τὴν ποίησιν ὁρμῶντες κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν φύσιν οἱ μὲν ἀντὶ τῶν ἰάμβων κωμῳδοποιοὶ ἐγένοντο,\n[Bekker 1449a line 5]\nοἱ δὲ ἀντὶ τῶν ἐπῶν τραγῳδοδιδάσκαλοι, διὰ τὸ μείζω καὶ ἐντιμότερα τὰ σχήματα εἶναι ταῦτα ἐκείνων. τὸ μὲν οὖν ἐπισκοπεῖν εἰ ἄρα ἔχει ἤδη ἡ τραγῳδία τοῖς εἴδεσιν ἱκανῶς ἢ οὔ, αὐτό τε καθ’ αὑτὸ κρῖναι καὶ πρὸς τὰ θέατρα, ἄλλος λόγος.\nγενομένη δ’ οὖν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς\n[Bekker 1449a line 10]\nαὐτοσχεδιαστικῆς — καὶ αὐτὴ καὶ ἡ κωμῳδία, καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὸν διθύραμβον, ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ φαλλικὰ ἃ ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐν πολλαῖς τῶν πόλεων διαμένει νομιζόμενα — κατὰ μικρὸν ηὐξήθη προαγόντων ὅσον ἐγίγνετο φανερὸν αὐτῆς·\nκαὶ πολλὰς μεταβολὰς μεταβαλοῦσα ἡ\n[Bekker 1449a line 15]\nτραγῳδία ἐπαύσατο, ἐπεὶ ἔσχε τὴν αὑτῆς φύσιν.\nκαὶ τό τε τῶν ὑποκριτῶν πλῆθος ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς δύο πρῶτος Αἰσχύλος ἤγαγε καὶ τὰ τοῦ χοροῦ ἠλάττωσε καὶ τὸν λόγον πρωταγωνιστεῖν παρεσκεύασεν· τρεῖς δὲ καὶ σκηνογραφίαν Σοφοκλῆς.\nἔτι δὲ τὸ μέγεθος· ἐκ μικρῶν μύθων καὶ\n[Bekker 1449a line 20]\nλέξεως γελοίας διὰ τὸ ἐκ σατυρικοῦ μεταβαλεῖν ὀψὲ ἀπεσεμνύνθη, τό τε μέτρον ἐκ τετραμέτρου ἰαμβεῖον ἐγένετο.\nτὸ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον τετραμέτρῳ ἐχρῶντο διὰ τὸ σατυρικὴν καὶ ὀρχηστικωτέραν εἶναι τὴν ποίησιν, λέξεως δὲ γενομένης αὐτὴ ἡ φύσις τὸ οἰκεῖον μέτρον εὗρε· μάλιστα γὰρ\n[Bekker 1449a line 25]\nλεκτικὸν τῶν μέτρων τὸ ἰαμβεῖόν ἐστιν· σημεῖον δὲ τούτου,\nπλεῖστα γὰρ ἰαμβεῖα λέγομεν ἐν τῇ διαλέκτῳ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους, ἑξάμετρα δὲ ὀλιγάκις καὶ ἐκβαίνοντες τῆς λεκτικῆς ἁρμονίας.\nἔτι δὲ ἐπεισοδίων πλήθη. καὶ τὰ ἄλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστα κοσμηθῆναι λέγεται\n[Bekker 1449a line 30]\nἔστω ἡμῖν εἰρημένα·\nπολὺ γὰρ ἂν ἴσως ἔργον εἴη διεξιέναι καθ’ ἕκαστον.\n\n### Chapter 5\n\nἡ δὲ κωμῳδία ἐστὶν ὥσπερ εἴπομεν μίμησις φαυλοτέρων μέν, οὐ μέντοι κατὰ πᾶσαν κακίαν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ ἐστι τὸ γελοῖον μόριον.\nτὸ γὰρ γελοῖόν ἐστιν\n[Bekker 1449a line 35]\nἁμάρτημά τι καὶ αἶσχος ἀνώδυνον καὶ οὐ φθαρτικόν, οἷον εὐθὺς τὸ γελοῖον πρόσωπον αἰσχρόν τι καὶ διεστραμμένον ἄνευ ὀδύνης.\nαἱ μὲν οὖν τῆς τραγῳδίας μεταβάσεις καὶ δι’ ὧν ἐγένοντο οὐ λελήθασιν, ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία διὰ τὸ μὴ\n[Bekker 1449b]\n[Bekker 1449b line 1]\nσπουδάζεσθαι ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἔλαθεν· καὶ γὰρ χορὸν κωμῳδῶν ὀψέ ποτε ὁ ἄρχων ἔδωκεν, ἀλλ’ ἐθελονταὶ ἦσαν.\nἤδη δὲ σχήματά τινα αὐτῆς ἐχούσης οἱ λεγόμενοι αὐτῆς ποιηταὶ μνημονεύονται. τίς δὲ πρόσωπα ἀπέδωκεν ἢ προλόγους ἢ\n[Bekker 1449b line 5]\nπλήθη ὑποκριτῶν καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, ἠγνόηται.\nτὸ δὲ μύθους ποιεῖν τὸ μὲν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐκ Σικελίας ἦλθε,\nτῶν δὲ Ἀθήνησιν Κράτης πρῶτος ἦρξεν ἀφέμενος τῆς ἰαμβικῆς ἰδέας καθόλου ποιεῖν λόγους καὶ μύθους.\nἡ μὲν οὖν ἐποποιία τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ μέχρι μὲν τοῦ μετὰ\n[Bekker 1449b line 10]\nμέτρου λόγῳ μίμησις εἶναι σπουδαίων ἠκολούθησεν· τῷ δὲ τὸ μέτρον ἁπλοῦν ἔχειν καὶ ἀπαγγελίαν εἶναι, ταύτῃ διαφέρουσιν·\nἔτι δὲ τῷ μήκει· ἡ μὲν ὅτι μάλιστα πειρᾶται ὑπὸ μίαν περίοδον ἡλίου εἶναι ἢ μικρὸν ἐξαλλάττειν, ἡ δὲ ἐποποιία ἀόριστος τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ τούτῳ διαφέρει,\nκαίτοι\n[Bekker 1449b line 15]\nτὸ πρῶτον ὁμοίως ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις τοῦτο ἐποίουν καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν.\nμέρη δ’ ἐστὶ τὰ μὲν ταὐτά, τὰ δὲ ἴδια τῆς τραγῳδίας·\nδιόπερ ὅστις περὶ τραγῳδίας οἶδε σπουδαίας καὶ φαύλης, οἶδε καὶ περὶ ἐπῶν· ἃ μὲν γὰρ ἐποποιία ἔχει, ὑπάρχει τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ, ἃ δὲ αὐτῇ, οὐ πάντα ἐν τῇ\n[Bekker 1449b line 20]\nἐποποιίᾳ.\n\n### Chapter 6\n\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τῆς ἐν ἑξαμέτροις μιμητικῆς καὶ περὶ κωμῳδίας ὕστερον ἐροῦμεν· περὶ δὲ τραγῳδίας λέγωμεν ἀναλαβόντες αὐτῆς ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων τὸν γινόμενον ὅρον τῆς οὐσίας.\nἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας\n[Bekker 1449b line 25]\nκαὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι’ ἀπαγγελίας, δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.\nλέγω δὲ ἡδυσμένον μὲν λόγον τὸν ἔχοντα ῥυθμὸν καὶ ἁρμονίαν,\nτὸ δὲ χωρὶς τοῖς\n[Bekker 1449b line 30]\nεἴδεσι τὸ διὰ μέτρων ἔνια μόνον περαίνεσθαι καὶ πάλιν ἕτερα διὰ μέλους.\nἐπεὶ δὲ πράττοντες ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν, πρῶτον μὲν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἂν εἴη τι μόριον τραγῳδίας ὁ τῆς ὄψεως κόσμος· εἶτα μελοποιία καὶ λέξις, ἐν τούτοις γὰρ ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν.\nλέγω δὲ λέξιν μὲν αὐτὴν τὴν τῶν\n[Bekker 1449b line 35]\nμέτρων σύνθεσιν, μελοποιίαν δὲ ὃ τὴν δύναμιν φανερὰν ἔχει πᾶσαν.\nἐπεὶ δὲ πράξεώς ἐστι μίμησις, πράττεται δὲ ὑπὸ τινῶν πραττόντων, οὓς ἀνάγκη ποιούς τινας εἶναι κατά τε τὸ ἦθος καὶ τὴν διάνοιαν (διὰ γὰρ τούτων καὶ τὰς\n[Bekker 1450a]\n[Bekker 1450a line 1]\nπράξεις εἶναί φαμεν ποιάς τινας, καὶ κατὰ ταύτας καὶ τυγχάνουσι καὶ ἀποτυγχάνουσι πάντες),\nἔστιν δὲ τῆς μὲν πράξεως ὁ μῦθος ἡ μίμησις, λέγω γὰρ μῦθον τοῦτον τὴν\n[Bekker 1450a line 5]\nσύνθεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων, τὰ δὲ ἤθη, καθ’ ὃ ποιούς τινας εἶναί φαμεν τοὺς πράττοντας, διάνοιαν δέ, ἐν ὅσοις λέγοντες ἀποδεικνύασίν τι ἢ καὶ ἀποφαίνονται γνώμην—\nἀνάγκη οὖν πάσης τῆς τραγῳδίας μέρη εἶναι ἕξ, καθ’ ὃ ποιά τις ἐστὶν ἡ τραγῳδία· ταῦτα δ’ ἐστὶ μῦθος καὶ ἤθη καὶ λέξις καὶ\n[Bekker 1450a line 10]\nδιάνοια καὶ ὄψις καὶ μελοποιία.\nοἷς μὲν γὰρ μιμοῦνται, δύο μέρη ἐστίν, ὡς δὲ μιμοῦνται, ἕν, ἃ δὲ μιμοῦνται, τρία, καὶ παρὰ ταῦτα οὐδέν.\nτούτοις μὲν οὖν † οὐκ ὀλίγοι αὐτῶν † ὡς εἰπεῖν κέχρηνται τοῖς εἴδεσιν· καὶ γὰρ † ὄψις ἔχει πᾶν † καὶ ἦθος καὶ μῦθον καὶ λέξιν καὶ μέλος καὶ διάνοιαν ὡσαύτως.\n[Bekker 1450a line 15]\nμέγιστον δὲ τούτων ἐστὶν ἡ τῶν πραγμάτων σύστασις. ἡ γὰρ τραγῳδία μίμησίς ἐστιν οὐκ ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ πράξεων καὶ βίου\n[Bekker 1450a line 20]\n·\nοὔκουν ὅπως τὰ ἤθη μιμήσωνται πράττουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἤθη συμπεριλαμβάνουσιν διὰ τὰς πράξεις· ὥστε τὰ πράγματα καὶ ὁ μῦθος τέλος τῆς τραγῳδίας, τὸ δὲ τέλος μέγιστον ἁπάντων.\nἔτι ἄνευ μὲν πράξεως οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο τραγῳδία, ἄνευ δὲ ἠθῶν\n[Bekker 1450a line 25]\nγένοιτ’ ἄν·\nαἱ γὰρ τῶν νέων τῶν πλείστων ἀήθεις τραγῳδίαι εἰσίν, καὶ ὅλως ποιηταὶ πολλοὶ τοιοῦτοι, οἷον καὶ τῶν γραφέων Ζεῦξις πρὸς Πολύγνωτον πέπονθεν· ὁ μὲν γὰρ Πολύγνωτος ἀγαθὸς ἠθογράφος, ἡ δὲ Ζεύξιδος γραφὴ οὐδὲν ἔχει ἦθος.\nἔτι ἐάν τις ἐφεξῆς θῇ ῥήσεις ἠθικὰς καὶ λέξει\n[Bekker 1450a line 30]\nκαὶ διανοίᾳ εὖ πεποιημένας, οὐ ποιήσει ὃ ἦν τῆς τραγῳδίας ἔργον, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον ἡ καταδεεστέροις τούτοις κεχρημένη τραγῳδία, ἔχουσα δὲ μῦθον καὶ σύστασιν πραγμάτων.\nπρὸς δὲ τούτοις τὰ μέγιστα οἷς ψυχαγωγεῖ ἡ τραγῳδία τοῦ μύθου μέρη ἐστίν, αἵ τε περιπέτειαι καὶ\n[Bekker 1450a line 35]\nἀναγνωρίσεις.\nἔτι σημεῖον ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἐγχειροῦντες ποιεῖν πρότερον δύνανται τῇ λέξει καὶ τοῖς ἤθεσιν ἀκριβοῦν ἢ τὰ πράγματα συνίστασθαι, οἷον καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ποιηταὶ σχεδὸν ἅπαντες.\nἀρχὴ μὲν οὖν καὶ οἷον ψυχὴ ὁ μῦθος τῆς τραγῳδίας, δεύτερον δὲ τὰ ἤθη\n(παραπλήσιον γάρ ἐστιν καὶ\n[Bekker 1450b]\n[Bekker 1450b line 1]\nἐπὶ τῆς γραφικῆς· εἰ γάρ τις ἐναλείψειε τοῖς καλλίστοις φαρμάκοις χύδην, οὐκ ἂν ὁμοίως εὐφράνειεν καὶ λευκογραφήσας εἰκόνα)·\nἔστιν τε μίμησις πράξεως καὶ διὰ ταύτην μάλιστα τῶν πραττόντων.\nτρίτον δὲ ἡ διάνοια· τοῦτο δέ\n[Bekker 1450b line 5]\nἐστιν τὸ λέγειν δύνασθαι τὰ ἐνόντα καὶ τὰ ἁρμόττοντα, ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῆς πολιτικῆς καὶ ῥητορικῆς ἔργον ἐστίν·\nοἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀρχαῖοι πολιτικῶς ἐποίουν λέγοντας, οἱ δὲ νῦν ῥητορικῶς.\nἔστιν δὲ ἦθος μὲν τὸ τοιοῦτον ὃ δηλοῖ τὴν προαίρεσιν, ὁποία τις\n[Bekker 1450b line 10]\nδιόπερ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἦθος τῶν λόγων ἐν\n[Bekker 1450b line 10a]\nοἷς μηδ’ ὅλως ἔστιν ὅ τι προαιρεῖται ἢ φεύγει ὁ λέγων—\nδιάνοια δὲ ἐν οἷς ἀποδεικνύουσί τι ὡς ἔστιν ἢ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν ἢ καθόλου τι ἀποφαίνονται.\nτέταρτον δὲ † τῶν μὲν λόγων † ἡ λέξις· λέγω δέ, ὥσπερ πρότερον εἴρηται, λέξιν εἶναι τὴν διὰ τῆς ὀνομασίας ἑρμηνείαν, ὃ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐμμέτρων καὶ\n[Bekker 1450b line 15]\nἐπὶ τῶν λόγων ἔχει τὴν αὐτὴν δύναμιν.\nτῶν δὲ λοιπῶν ἡ μελοποιία μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων,\nἡ δὲ ὄψις ψυχαγωγικὸν μέν, ἀτεχνότατον δὲ καὶ ἥκιστα οἰκεῖον τῆς ποιητικῆς· ἡ γὰρ τῆς τραγῳδίας δύναμις καὶ ἄνευ ἀγῶνος καὶ ὑποκριτῶν ἔστιν, ἔτι δὲ κυριωτέρα περὶ τὴν ἀπεργασίαν\n[Bekker 1450b line 20]\nτῶν ὄψεων ἡ τοῦ σκευοποιοῦ τέχνη τῆς τῶν ποιητῶν ἐστιν.\n\n### Chapter 7\n\nδιωρισμένων δὲ τούτων, λέγωμεν μετὰ ταῦτα ποίαν τινὰ δεῖ τὴν σύστασιν εἶναι τῶν πραγμάτων, ἐπειδὴ τοῦτο καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μέγιστον τῆς τραγῳδίας ἐστίν.\nκεῖται δὴ ἡμῖν τὴν τραγῳδίαν τελείας καὶ ὅλης πράξεως εἶναι\n[Bekker 1450b line 25]\nμίμησιν ἐχούσης τι μέγεθος· ἔστιν γὰρ ὅλον καὶ μηδὲν ἔχον μέγεθος.\nὅλον δέ ἐστιν τὸ ἔχον ἀρχὴν καὶ μέσον καὶ τελευτήν.\nἀρχὴ δέ ἐστιν ὃ αὐτὸ μὲν μὴ ἐξ ἀνάγκης μετ’ ἄλλο ἐστίν, μετ’ ἐκεῖνο δ’ ἕτερον πέφυκεν εἶναι ἢ γίνεσθαι·\nτελευτὴ δὲ τοὐναντίον ὃ αὐτὸ μὲν μετ’ ἄλλο πέφυκεν εἶναι ἢ\n[Bekker 1450b line 30]\nἐξ ἀνάγκης ἢ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ, μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο ἄλλο οὐδέν·\nμέσον δὲ ὃ καὶ αὐτὸ μετ’ ἄλλο καὶ μετ’ ἐκεῖνο ἕτερον.\nδεῖ ἄρα τοὺς συνεστῶτας εὖ μύθους μήθ’ ὁπόθεν ἔτυχεν ἄρχεσθαι μήθ’ ὅπου ἔτυχε τελευτᾶν, ἀλλὰ κεχρῆσθαι ταῖς εἰρημέναις ἰδέαις.\nἔτι δ’ ἐπεὶ τὸ καλὸν καὶ ζῷον καὶ ἅπαν\n[Bekker 1450b line 35]\nπρᾶγμα ὃ συνέστηκεν ἐκ τινῶν οὐ μόνον ταῦτα τεταγμένα δεῖ ἔχειν ἀλλὰ καὶ μέγεθος ὑπάρχειν μὴ τὸ τυχόν· τὸ γὰρ καλὸν ἐν μεγέθει καὶ τάξει ἐστίν,\nδιὸ οὔτε πάμμικρον ἄν τι γένοιτο καλὸν ζῷον (συγχεῖται γὰρ ἡ θεωρία ἐγγὺς τοῦ ἀναισθήτου χρόνου γινομένη) οὔτε παμμέγεθες (οὐ γὰρ\n[Bekker 1451a]\n[Bekker 1451a line 1]\nἅμα ἡ θεωρία γίνεται ἀλλ’ οἴχεται τοῖς θεωροῦσι τὸ ἓν καὶ τὸ ὅλον ἐκ τῆς θεωρίας) οἷον εἰ μυρίων σταδίων εἴη ζῷον·\nὥστε δεῖ καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν σωμάτων καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ζῴων ἔχειν μὲν μέγεθος, τοῦτο δὲ εὐσύνοπτον εἶναι, οὕτω\n[Bekker 1451a line 5]\nκαὶ ἐπὶ τῶν μύθων ἔχειν μὲν μῆκος, τοῦτο δὲ εὐμνημόνευτον εἶναι.\nτοῦ δὲ μήκους ὅρος ὁ μὲν πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν οὐ τῆς τέχνης ἐστίν· εἰ γὰρ ἔδει ἑκατὸν τραγῳδίας ἀγωνίζεσθαι, πρὸς κλεψύδρας ἂν ἠγωνίζοντο, † ὥσπερ ποτὲ καὶ ἄλλοτέ φασιν †.\nὁ δὲ κατ’ αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν\n[Bekker 1451a line 10]\nτοῦ πράγματος ὅρος, ἀεὶ μὲν ὁ μείζων μέχρι τοῦ σύνδηλος εἶναι καλλίων ἐστὶ κατὰ τὸ μέγεθος· ὡς δὲ ἁπλῶς διορίσαντας εἰπεῖν, ἐν ὅσῳ μεγέθει κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον ἐφεξῆς γιγνομένων συμβαίνει εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἐκ δυστυχίας ἢ ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν μεταβάλλειν, ἱκανὸς\n[Bekker 1451a line 15]\nὅρος ἐστὶν τοῦ μεγέθους.\n\n### Chapter 8\n\nμῦθος δ’ ἐστὶν εἷς οὐχ ὥσπερ τινὲς οἴονται ἐὰν περὶ ἕνα ᾖ· πολλὰ γὰρ καὶ ἄπειρα τῷ ἑνὶ συμβαίνει, ἐξ ὧν ἐνίων οὐδέν ἐστιν ἕν· οὕτως δὲ καὶ πράξεις ἑνὸς πολλαί εἰσιν, ἐξ ὧν μία οὐδεμία γίνεται πρᾶξις.\nδιὸ πάντες ἐοίκασιν\n[Bekker 1451a line 20]\nἁμαρτάνειν ὅσοι τῶν ποιητῶν Ἡρακληίδα Θησηίδα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ποιήματα πεποιήκασιν· οἴονται γάρ, ἐπεὶ εἷς ἦν ὁ Ἡρακλῆς, ἕνα καὶ τὸν μῦθον εἶναι προσήκειν.\nὁ δ’ Ὅμηρος ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα διαφέρει καὶ τοῦτ’ ἔοικεν καλῶς ἰδεῖν, ἤτοι διὰ τέχνην ἢ διὰ φύσιν· Ὀδύσσειαν\n[Bekker 1451a line 25]\nγὰρ ποιῶν οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἅπαντα ὅσα αὐτῷ συνέβη, οἷον πληγῆναι μὲν ἐν τῷ Παρνασσῷ, μανῆναι δὲ προσποιήσασθαι ἐν τῷ ἀγερμῷ, ὧν οὐδὲν θατέρου γενομένου ἀναγκαῖον ἦν ἢ εἰκὸς θάτερον γενέσθαι, ἀλλὰ περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν οἵαν λέγομεν τὴν Ὀδύσσειαν συνέστησεν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἰλιάδα.\n[Bekker 1451a line 30]\nχρὴ οὖν, καθάπερ καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις μιμητικαῖς ἡ μία μίμησις ἑνός ἐστιν, οὕτω καὶ τὸν μῦθον, ἐπεὶ πράξεως μίμησίς ἐστι, μιᾶς τε εἶναι καὶ ταύτης ὅλης, καὶ τὰ μέρη συνεστάναι τῶν πραγμάτων οὕτως ὥστε μετατιθεμένου τινὸς μέρους ἢ ἀφαιρουμένου διαφέρεσθαι καὶ κινεῖσθαι τὸ ὅλον· ὃ γὰρ προσὸν\n[Bekker 1451a line 35]\nἢ μὴ προσὸν μηδὲν ποιεῖ ἐπίδηλον, οὐδὲν μόριον τοῦ ὅλου ἐστίν.\n\n### Chapter 9\n\nφανερὸν δὲ ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων καὶ ὅτι οὐ τὸ τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τοῦτο ποιητοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν, ἀλλ’ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον.\nὁ γὰρ\n[Bekker 1451b]\n[Bekker 1451b line 1]\nἱστορικὸς καὶ ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ τῷ ἢ ἔμμετρα λέγειν ἢ ἄμετρα διαφέρουσιν (εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ Ἡροδότου εἰς μέτρα τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων)· ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει, τῷ τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμενα\n[Bekker 1451b line 5]\nλέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο.\nδιὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ’ ἱστορία τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον λέγει.\nἔστιν δὲ καθόλου μέν, τῷ ποίῳ τὰ ποῖα ἄττα συμβαίνει λέγειν ἢ πράττειν κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον, οὗ\n[Bekker 1451b line 10]\nστοχάζεται ἡ ποίησις ὀνόματα ἐπιτιθεμένη· τὸ δὲ καθ’ ἕκαστον, τί Ἀλκιβιάδης ἔπραξεν ἢ τί ἔπαθεν.\nἐπὶ μὲν οὖν τῆς κωμῳδίας ἤδη τοῦτο δῆλον γέγονεν· συστήσαντες γὰρ τὸν μῦθον διὰ τῶν εἰκότων οὕτω τὰ τυχόντα ὀνόματα ὑποτιθέασιν, καὶ οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ἰαμβοποιοὶ περὶ τὸν καθ’ ἕκαστον\n[Bekker 1451b line 15]\nποιοῦσιν.\nἐπὶ δὲ τῆς τραγῳδίας τῶν γενομένων ὀνομάτων ἀντέχονται. αἴτιον δ’ ὅτι πιθανόν ἐστι τὸ δυνατόν· τὰ μὲν οὖν μὴ γενόμενα οὔπω πιστεύομεν εἶναι δυνατά, τὰ δὲ γενόμενα φανερὸν ὅτι δυνατά· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐγένετο, εἰ ἦν ἀδύνατα.\nοὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις ἐν ἐνίαις μὲν ἓν\n[Bekker 1451b line 20]\nἢ δύο τῶν γνωρίμων ἐστὶν ὀνομάτων, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πεποιημένα, ἐν ἐνίαις δὲ οὐθέν, οἷον ἐν τῷ Ἀγάθωνος Ἀνθεῖ· ὁμοίως γὰρ ἐν τούτῳ τά τε πράγματα καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα πεποίηται, καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον εὐφραίνει.\nὥστ’ οὐ πάντως εἶναι ζητητέον τῶν παραδεδομένων μύθων, περὶ οὓς αἱ τραγῳδίαι εἰσίν,\n[Bekker 1451b line 25]\nἀντέχεσθαι. καὶ γὰρ γελοῖον τοῦτο ζητεῖν, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὰ γνώριμα ὀλίγοις γνώριμά ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ὅμως εὐφραίνει πάντας.\nδῆλον οὖν ἐκ τούτων ὅτι τὸν ποιητὴν μᾶλλον τῶν μύθων εἶναι δεῖ ποιητὴν ἢ τῶν μέτρων, ὅσῳ ποιητὴς κατὰ τὴν μίμησίν ἐστιν, μιμεῖται δὲ τὰς πράξεις.\nκἂν ἄρα συμβῇ\n[Bekker 1451b line 30]\nγενόμενα ποιεῖν, οὐθὲν ἧττον ποιητής ἐστι· τῶν γὰρ γενομένων ἔνια οὐδὲν κωλύει τοιαῦτα εἶναι οἷα ἂν εἰκὸς γενέσθαι, καθ’ ὃ ἐκεῖνος αὐτῶν ποιητής ἐστιν.\nτῶν δὲ ἁπλῶν μύθων καὶ πράξεων αἱ ἐπεισοδιώδεις εἰσὶν χείρισται· λέγω δ’ ἐπεισοδιώδη μῦθον ἐν ᾧ τὰ\n[Bekker 1451b line 35]\nἐπεισόδια μετ’ ἄλληλα οὔτ’ εἰκὸς οὔτ’ ἀνάγκη εἶναι.\nτοιαῦται δὲ ποιοῦνται ὑπὸ μὲν τῶν φαύλων ποιητῶν δι’ αὐτούς, ὑπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀγαθῶν διὰ τοὺς ὑποκριτάς· ἀγωνίσματα γὰρ ποιοῦντες καὶ παρὰ τὴν δύναμιν παρατείνοντες τὸν μῦθον\n[Bekker 1452a]\n[Bekker 1452a line 1]\nπολλάκις διαστρέφειν ἀναγκάζονται τὸ ἐφεξῆς.\nἐπεὶ δὲ οὐ\n[Bekker 1452a line 2]\nμόνον τελείας ἐστὶ πράξεως ἡ μίμησις ἀλλὰ καὶ φοβερῶν καὶ ἐλεεινῶν, ταῦτα δὲ γίνεται καὶ μάλιστα ὅταν γένηται παρὰ τὴν δόξαν δι’ ἄλληλα·\nτὸ γὰρ\n[Bekker 1452a line 5]\nθαυμαστὸν οὕτως ἕξει μᾶλλον ἢ εἰ ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου καὶ τῆς τύχης, ἐπεὶ καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ τύχης ταῦτα θαυμασιώτατα δοκεῖ ὅσα ὥσπερ ἐπίτηδες φαίνεται γεγονέναι, οἷον ὡς ὁ ἀνδριὰς ὁ τοῦ Μίτυος ἐν Ἄργει ἀπέκτεινεν τὸν αἴτιον τοῦ θανάτου τῷ Μίτυι, θεωροῦντι ἐμπεσών· ἔοικε γὰρ τὰ τοιαῦτα\n[Bekker 1452a line 10]\nοὐκ εἰκῇ γίνεσθαι·\nὥστε ἀνάγκη τοὺς τοιούτους εἶναι καλλίους μύθους.\n\n### Chapter 10\n\nεἰσὶ δὲ τῶν μύθων οἱ μὲν ἁπλοῖ οἱ δὲ πεπλεγμένοι· καὶ γὰρ αἱ πράξεις ὧν μιμήσεις οἱ μῦθοί εἰσιν ὑπάρχουσιν εὐθὺς οὖσαι τοιαῦται.\nλέγω δὲ ἁπλῆν μὲν πρᾶξιν ἧς\n[Bekker 1452a line 15]\nγινομένης ὥσπερ ὥρισται συνεχοῦς καὶ μιᾶς ἄνευ περιπετείας ἢ ἀναγνωρισμοῦ ἡ μετάβασις γίνεται,\nπεπλεγμένην δὲ ἐξ ἧς μετὰ ἀναγνωρισμοῦ ἢ περιπετείας ἢ ἀμφοῖν ἡ μετάβασίς ἐστιν.\nταῦτα δὲ δεῖ γίνεσθαι ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς συστάσεως τοῦ μύθου, ὥστε ἐκ τῶν προγεγενημένων συμβαίνειν\n[Bekker 1452a line 20]\nἢ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἢ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς γίγνεσθαι ταῦτα· διαφέρει γὰρ πολὺ τὸ γίγνεσθαι τάδε διὰ τάδε ἢ μετὰ τάδε.\n\n### Chapter 11\n\nἔστι δὲ περιπέτεια μὲν ἡ εἰς τὸ ἐναντίον τῶν πραττομένων μεταβολὴ καθάπερ εἴρηται, καὶ τοῦτο δὲ ὥσπερ λέγομεν κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ ἀναγκαῖον,\nοἷον ἐν τῷ ́\n[Bekker 1452a line 25]\nΟἰδιποδι ἐλθὼν ὡς εὐφρανῶν τὸν Οἰδίπουν καὶ ἀπαλλάξων τοῦ πρὸς τὴν μητέρα φόβου, δηλώσας ὃς ἦν, τοὐναντίον ἐποίησεν·\nκαὶ ἐν τῷ Λυγκεῖ ὁ μὲν ἀγόμενος ὡς ἀποθανούμενος, ὁ δὲ Δαναὸς ἀκολουθῶν ὡς ἀποκτενῶν, τὸν μὲν συνέβη ἐκ τῶν πεπραγμένων ἀποθανεῖν, τὸν δὲ σωθῆναι.\nἀναγνώρισις\n[Bekker 1452a line 30]\nδέ, ὥσπερ καὶ τοὔνομα σημαίνει, ἐξ ἀγνοίας εἰς γνῶσιν μεταβολή, ἢ εἰς φιλίαν ἢ εἰς ἔχθραν, τῶν πρὸς εὐτυχίαν ἢ δυστυχίαν ὡρισμένων·\nκαλλίστη δὲ ἀναγνώρισις, ὅταν ἅμα περιπετείᾳ γένηται, οἷον ἔχει ἡ ἐν τῷ Οἰδίποδι.\nεἰσὶν μὲν οὖν καὶ ἄλλαι ἀναγνωρίσεις· καὶ γὰρ πρὸς ἄψυχα καὶ τὰ\n[Bekker 1452a line 35]\nτυχόντα † ἐστὶν ὥσπερ εἴρηται συμβαίνει † καὶ εἰ πέπραγέ τις ἢ μὴ πέπραγεν ἔστιν ἀναγνωρίσαι.\nἀλλ’ ἡ μάλιστα τοῦ μύθου καὶ ἡ μάλιστα τῆς πράξεως ἡ εἰρημένη ἐστίν· ἡ γὰρ τοιαύτη ἀναγνώρισις καὶ περιπέτεια ἢ ἔλεον ἕξει\n[Bekker 1452b]\n[Bekker 1452b line 1]\nἢ φόβον (οἵων πράξεων ἡ τραγῳδία μίμησις ὑπόκειται), ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸ ἀτυχεῖν καὶ τὸ εὐτυχεῖν ἐπὶ τῶν τοιούτων συμβήσεται.\nἐπεὶ δὴ ἡ ἀναγνώρισις τινῶν ἐστιν ἀναγνώρισις, αἱ μέν εἰσι θατέρου πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον μόνον, ὅταν ᾖ δῆλος ἅτερος\n[Bekker 1452b line 5]\nτίς ἐστιν, ὁτὲ δὲ ἀμφοτέρους δεῖ ἀναγνωρίσαι, οἷον ἡ μὲν Ἰφιγένεια τῷ Ὀρέστῃ ἀνεγνωρίσθη ἐκ τῆς πέμψεως τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, ἐκείνου δὲ πρὸς τὴν Ἰφιγένειαν ἄλλης ἔδει ἀναγνωρίσεως.\nδύο μὲν οὖν τοῦ μύθου μέρη ταῦτ’ ἐστί, περιπέτεια\n[Bekker 1452b line 10]\nκαὶ ἀναγνώρισις· τρίτον δὲ πάθος. τούτων δὲ περιπέτεια μὲν καὶ ἀναγνώρισις εἴρηται,\nπάθος δέ ἐστι πρᾶξις φθαρτικὴ ἢ ὀδυνηρά, οἷον οἵ τε ἐν τῷ φανερῷ θάνατοι καὶ αἱ περιωδυνίαι καὶ τρώσεις καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα.\n\n### Chapter 12\n\nμέρη δὲ τραγῳδίας οἷς μὲν ὡς εἴδεσι δεῖ χρῆσθαι\n[Bekker 1452b line 15]\nπρότερον εἴπομεν, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ποσὸν καὶ εἰς ἃ διαιρεῖται κεχωρισμένα τάδε ἐστίν, πρόλογος ἐπεισόδιον ἔξοδος χορικόν,\nκαὶ τούτου τὸ μὲν πάροδος τὸ δὲ στάσιμον,\nκοινὰ μὲν ἁπάντων ταῦτα, ἴδια δὲ τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς καὶ κομμοί.\nἔστιν δὲ πρόλογος μὲν μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ πρὸ χοροῦ\n[Bekker 1452b line 20]\nπαρόδου,\nἐπεισόδιον δὲ μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ μεταξὺ ὅλων χορικῶν μελῶν,\nἔξοδος δὲ μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας μεθ’ ὃ οὐκ ἔστι χοροῦ μέλος·\nχορικοῦ δὲ πάροδος μὲν ἡ πρώτη λέξις ὅλη χοροῦ,\nστάσιμον δὲ μέλος χοροῦ τὸ ἄνευ ἀναπαίστου καὶ τροχαίου,\nκομμὸς δὲ θρῆνος κοινὸς χοροῦ καὶ ἀπὸ\n[Bekker 1452b line 25]\nσκηνῆς.\nμέρη δὲ τραγῳδίας οἷς μὲν ὡς εἴδεσι δεῖ χρῆσθαι πρότερον εἴπαμεν, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ποσὸν καὶ εἰς ἃ διαιρεῖται κεχωρισμένα ταῦτ’ ἐστίν.\n\n### Chapter 13\n\nὧν δὲ δεῖ στοχάζεσθαι καὶ ἃ δεῖ εὐλαβεῖσθαι συνιστάντας τοὺς μύθους καὶ πόθεν ἔσται τὸ τῆς τραγῳδίας ἔργον,\n[Bekker 1452b line 30]\nἐφεξῆς ἂν εἴη λεκτέον τοῖς νῦν εἰρημένοις.\nἐπειδὴ οὖν δεῖ τὴν σύνθεσιν εἶναι τῆς καλλίστης τραγῳδίας μὴ ἁπλῆν ἀλλὰ πεπλεγμένην καὶ ταύτην φοβερῶν καὶ ἐλεεινῶν εἶναι μιμητικήν (τοῦτο γὰρ ἴδιον τῆς τοιαύτης μιμήσεώς ἐστιν), πρῶτον μὲν δῆλον ὅτι οὔτε τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς ἄνδρας δεῖ\n[Bekker 1452b line 35]\nμεταβάλλοντας φαίνεσθαι ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν, οὐ γὰρ φοβερὸν οὐδὲ ἐλεεινὸν τοῦτο ἀλλὰ μιαρόν ἐστιν·\nοὔτε τοὺς μοχθηροὺς ἐξ ἀτυχίας εἰς εὐτυχίαν, ἀτραγῳδότατον γὰρ τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ πάντων, οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔχει ὧν δεῖ, οὔτε γὰρ φιλάνθρωπον\n[Bekker 1453a]\n[Bekker 1453a line 1]\nοὔτε ἐλεεινὸν οὔτε φοβερόν ἐστιν·\nοὐδ’ αὖ τὸν σφόδρα πονηρὸν ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν μεταπίπτειν· τὸ μὲν γὰρ φιλάνθρωπον ἔχοι ἂν ἡ τοιαύτη σύστασις ἀλλ’ οὔτε ἔλεον οὔτε φόβον, ὁ μὲν γὰρ περὶ τὸν ἀνάξιόν ἐστιν δυστυχοῦντα, ὁ δὲ\n[Bekker 1453a line 5]\nπερὶ τὸν ὅμοιον, ἔλεος μὲν περὶ τὸν ἀνάξιον, φόβος δὲ περὶ τὸν ὅμοιον, ὥστε οὔτε ἐλεεινὸν οὔτε φοβερὸν ἔσται τὸ συμβαῖνον.\nὁ μεταξὺ ἄρα τούτων λοιπός. ἔστι δὲ τοιοῦτος ὁ μήτε ἀρετῇ διαφέρων καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ μήτε διὰ κακίαν καὶ μοχθηρίαν μεταβάλλων εἰς τὴν δυστυχίαν ἀλλὰ δι’\n[Bekker 1453a line 10]\nἁμαρτίαν τινά, τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ δόξῃ ὄντων καὶ εὐτυχίᾳ, οἷον Οἰδίπους καὶ Θυέστης καὶ οἱ ἐκ τῶν τοιούτων γενῶν ἐπιφανεῖς ἄνδρες.\nἀνάγκη ἄρα τὸν καλῶς ἔχοντα μῦθον ἁπλοῦν εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ διπλοῦν, ὥσπερ τινές φασι, καὶ μεταβάλλειν οὐκ εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἐκ δυστυχίας ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον\n[Bekker 1453a line 15]\nἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν μὴ διὰ μοχθηρίαν ἀλλὰ δι’ ἁμαρτίαν μεγάλην ἢ οἵου εἴρηται ἢ βελτίονος μᾶλλον ἢ χείρονος.\nσημεῖον δὲ καὶ τὸ γιγνόμενον· πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ οἱ ποιηταὶ τοὺς τυχόντας μύθους ἀπηρίθμουν, νῦν δὲ περὶ ὀλίγας οἰκίας αἱ κάλλισται τραγῳδίαι συντίθενται, οἷον\n[Bekker 1453a line 20]\nπερὶ Ἀλκμέωνα καὶ Οἰδίπουν καὶ Ὀρέστην καὶ Μελέαγρον καὶ Θυέστην καὶ Τήλεφον καὶ ὅσοις ἄλλοις συμβέβηκεν ἢ παθεῖν δεινὰ ἢ ποιῆσαι.\nἡ μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὴν τέχνην καλλίστη τραγῳδία ἐκ ταύτης τῆς συστάσεώς ἐστι.\nδιὸ καὶ οἱ Εὐριπίδῃ ἐγκαλοῦντες τὸ αὐτὸ ἁμαρτάνουσιν ὅτι τοῦτο\n[Bekker 1453a line 25]\nδρᾷ ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις καὶ αἱ πολλαὶ αὐτοῦ εἰς δυστυχίαν τελευτῶσιν. τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν ὥσπερ εἴρηται ὀρθόν·\nσημεῖον δὲ μέγιστον· ἐπὶ γὰρ τῶν σκηνῶν καὶ τῶν ἀγώνων τραγικώταται αἱ τοιαῦται φαίνονται, ἂν κατορθωθῶσιν, καὶ ὁ Εὐριπίδης, εἰ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα μὴ εὖ οἰκονομεῖ, ἀλλὰ\n[Bekker 1453a line 30]\nτραγικώτατός γε τῶν ποιητῶν φαίνεται.\nδευτέρα δ’ ἡ πρώτη λεγομένη ὑπὸ τινῶν ἐστιν σύστασις, ἡ διπλῆν τε τὴν σύστασιν ἔχουσα καθάπερ ἡ Ὀδύσσεια καὶ τελευτῶσα ἐξ ἐναντίας τοῖς βελτίοσι καὶ χείροσιν.\nδοκεῖ δὲ εἶναι πρώτη διὰ τὴν τῶν θεάτρων ἀσθένειαν· ἀκολουθοῦσι γὰρ οἱ ποιηταὶ κατ’\n[Bekker 1453a line 35]\nεὐχὴν ποιοῦντες τοῖς θεαταῖς.\nἔστιν δὲ οὐχ αὕτη ἀπὸ τραγῳδίας ἡδονὴ ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον τῆς κωμῳδίας οἰκεία· ἐκεῖ γὰρ οἳ ἂν ἔχθιστοι ὦσιν ἐν τῷ μύθῳ, οἷον Ὀρέστης καὶ Αἴγισθος, φίλοι γενόμενοι ἐπὶ τελευτῆς ἐξέρχονται, καὶ ἀποθνῄσκει οὐδεὶς ὑπ’ οὐδενός.\n\n### Chapter 14\n\n[Bekker 1453b]\n[Bekker 1453b line 1]\nἔστιν μὲν οὖν τὸ φοβερὸν καὶ ἐλεεινὸν ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως γίγνεσθαι, ἔστιν δὲ καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς συστάσεως τῶν πραγμάτων, ὅπερ ἐστὶ πρότερον καὶ ποιητοῦ ἀμείνονος.\nδεῖ γὰρ καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ὁρᾶν οὕτω συνεστάναι τὸν μῦθον ὥστε τὸν\n[Bekker 1453b line 5]\nἀκούοντα τὰ πράγματα γινόμενα καὶ φρίττειν καὶ ἐλεεῖν ἐκ τῶν συμβαινόντων· ἅπερ ἂν πάθοι τις ἀκούων τὸν τοῦ Οἰδίπου μῦθον.\nτὸ δὲ διὰ τῆς ὄψεως τοῦτο παρασκευάζειν ἀτεχνότερον καὶ χορηγίας δεόμενόν ἐστιν.\nοἱ δὲ μὴ τὸ\n[Bekker 1453b line 9]\nφοβερὸν διὰ τῆς ὄψεως ἀλλὰ τὸ τερατῶδες μόνον\n[Bekker 1453b line 10]\nπαρασκευάζοντες οὐδὲν τραγῳδίᾳ κοινωνοῦσιν· οὐ γὰρ πᾶσαν δεῖ ζητεῖν ἡδονὴν ἀπὸ τραγῳδίας ἀλλὰ τὴν οἰκείαν.\nἐπεὶ δὲ τὴν ἀπὸ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου διὰ μιμήσεως δεῖ ἡδονὴν παρασκευάζειν τὸν ποιητήν, φανερὸν ὡς τοῦτο ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν ἐμποιητέον.\nποῖα οὖν δεινὰ ἢ ποῖα οἰκτρὰ φαίνεται τῶν\n[Bekker 1453b line 15]\nσυμπιπτόντων, λάβωμεν. ἀνάγκη δὴ ἢ φίλων εἶναι πρὸς ἀλλήλους τὰς τοιαύτας πράξεις ἢ ἐχθρῶν ἢ μηδετέρων.\nἂν μὲν οὖν ἐχθρὸς ἐχθρόν, οὐδὲν ἐλεεινὸν οὔτε ποιῶν οὔτε μέλλων, πλὴν κατ’ αὐτὸ τὸ πάθος·\nοὐδ’ ἂν μηδετέρως ἔχοντες·\nὅταν δ’ ἐν ταῖς φιλίαις ἐγγένηται τὰ\n[Bekker 1453b line 20]\nπάθη, οἷον ἢ ἀδελφὸς ἀδελφὸν ἢ υἱὸς πατέρα ἢ μήτηρ υἱὸν ἢ υἱὸς μητέρα ἀποκτείνῃ ἢ μέλλῃ ἤ τι ἄλλο τοιοῦτον δρᾷ, ταῦτα ζητητέον.\nτοὺς μὲν οὖν παρειλημμένους μύθους λύειν οὐκ ἔστιν, λέγω δὲ οἷον τὴν Κλυταιμήστραν ἀποθανοῦσαν ὑπὸ τοῦ Ὀρέστου καὶ τὴν Ἐριφύλην ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκμέωνος,\n[Bekker 1453b line 25]\nαὐτὸν δὲ εὑρίσκειν δεῖ καὶ τοῖς παραδεδομένοις χρῆσθαι καλῶς. τὸ δὲ καλῶς τί λέγομεν, εἴπωμεν σαφέστερον.\nἔστι μὲν γὰρ οὕτω γίνεσθαι τὴν πρᾶξιν, ὥσπερ οἱ παλαιοὶ ἐποίουν εἰδότας καὶ γιγνώσκοντας, καθάπερ καὶ Εὐριπίδης ἐποίησεν ἀποκτείνουσαν τοὺς παῖδας τὴν Μήδειαν·\nἔστιν δὲ\n[Bekker 1453b line 30]\nπρᾶξαι μέν, ἀγνοοῦντας δὲ πρᾶξαι τὸ δεινόν, εἶθ’ ὕστερον ἀναγνωρίσαι τὴν φιλίαν, ὥσπερ ὁ Σοφοκλέους Οἰδίπους· τοῦτο μὲν οὖν ἔξω τοῦ δράματος, ἐν δ’ αὐτῇ τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ οἷον ὁ Ἀλκμέων ὁ Ἀστυδάμαντος ἢ ὁ Τηλέγονος ὁ ἐν τῷ τραυματίᾳ Ὀδυσσεῖ.\nἔτι δὲ τρίτον παρὰ ταῦτα τὸ\n[Bekker 1453b line 35]\nμέλλοντα ποιεῖν τι τῶν ἀνηκέστων δι’ ἄγνοιαν ἀναγνωρίσαι πρὶν ποιῆσαι.\nκαὶ παρὰ ταῦτα οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλως. ἢ γὰρ πρᾶξαι ἀνάγκη ἢ μὴ καὶ εἰδότας ἢ μὴ εἰδότας.\nτούτων δὲ τὸ μὲν γινώσκοντα μελλῆσαι καὶ μὴ πρᾶξαι χείριστον· τό τε γὰρ μιαρὸν ἔχει, καὶ οὐ τραγικόν· ἀπαθὲς γάρ. διόπερ οὐδεὶς\n[Bekker 1454a]\n[Bekker 1454a line 1]\nποιεῖ ὁμοίως, εἰ μὴ ὀλιγάκις, οἷον ἐν Ἀντιγόνῃ τὸν Κρέοντα ὁ Αἵμων.\nτὸ δὲ πρᾶξαι δεύτερον.\nβέλτιον δὲ τὸ ἀγνοοῦντα μὲν πρᾶξαι, πράξαντα δὲ ἀναγνωρίσαι· τό τε γὰρ μιαρὸν οὐ πρόσεστιν καὶ ἡ ἀναγνώρισις ἐκπληκτικόν.\nκράτιστον δὲ\n[Bekker 1454a line 5]\nτὸ τελευταῖον, λέγω δὲ οἷον ἐν τῷ Κρεσφόντῃ ἡ Μερόπη μέλλει τὸν υἱὸν ἀποκτείνειν, ἀποκτείνει δὲ οὔ, ἀλλ’ ἀνεγνώρισε, καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰφιγενείᾳ ἡ ἀδελφὴ τὸν ἀδελφόν, καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἕλλῃ ὁ υἱὸς τὴν μητέρα ἐκδιδόναι μέλλων ἀνεγνώρισεν.\nδιὰ γὰρ τοῦτο, ὅπερ πάλαι εἴρηται, οὐ περὶ πολλὰ\n[Bekker 1454a line 10]\nγένη αἱ τραγῳδίαι εἰσίν. ζητοῦντες γὰρ οὐκ ἀπὸ τέχνης ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ τύχης εὗρον τὸ τοιοῦτον παρασκευάζειν ἐν τοῖς μύθοις· ἀναγκάζονται οὖν ἐπὶ ταύτας τὰς οἰκίας ἀπαντᾶν ὅσαις τὰ τοιαῦτα συμβέβηκε πάθη.\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τῆς τῶν πραγμάτων συστάσεως καὶ ποίους τινὰς εἶναι δεῖ τοὺς μύθους\n[Bekker 1454a line 15]\nεἴρηται ἱκανῶς.\n\n### Chapter 15\n\nπερὶ δὲ τὰ ἤθη τέτταρά ἐστιν ὧν δεῖ στοχάζεσθαι, ἓν μὲν καὶ πρῶτον, ὅπως χρηστὰ ᾖ.\nἕξει δὲ ἦθος μὲν ἐὰν ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη ποιῇ φανερὸν ὁ λόγος ἢ ἡ πρᾶξις προαίρεσίν τινα ἥ τις ἂν ᾖ, χρηστὸν δὲ ἐὰν\n[Bekker 1454a line 20]\nχρηστήν.\nἔστιν δὲ ἐν ἑκάστῳ γένει· καὶ γὰρ γυνή ἐστιν χρηστὴ καὶ δοῦλος, καίτοι γε ἴσως τούτων τὸ μὲν χεῖρον, τὸ δὲ ὅλως φαῦλόν ἐστιν.\nδεύτερον δὲ τὸ ἁρμόττοντα· ἔστιν γὰρ ἀνδρείαν μὲν τὸ ἦθος, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ἁρμόττον γυναικὶ οὕτως ἀνδρείαν ἢ δεινὴν εἶναι.\nτρίτον δὲ τὸ ὅμοιον. τοῦτο γὰρ ἕτερον\n[Bekker 1454a line 25]\nτοῦ χρηστὸν τὸ ἦθος καὶ ἁρμόττον ποιῆσαι ὡς προείρηται.\nτέταρτον δὲ τὸ ὁμαλόν. κἂν γὰρ ἀνώμαλός τις ᾖ ὁ τὴν μίμησιν παρέχων καὶ τοιοῦτον ἦθος ὑποτεθῇ, ὅμως ὁμαλῶς ἀνώμαλον δεῖ εἶναι.\nἔστιν δὲ παράδειγμα πονηρίας μὲν ἤθους μὴ ἀναγκαίας οἷον ὁ Μενέλαος ὁ ἐν τῷ Ὀρέστῃ,\nτοῦ\n[Bekker 1454a line 30]\nδὲ ἀπρεποῦς καὶ μὴ ἁρμόττοντος ὅ τε θρῆνος Ὀδυσσέως ἐν τῇ Σκύλλῃ καὶ ἡ τῆς Μελανίππης ῥῆσις,\nτοῦ δὲ ἀνωμάλου ἡ ἐν Αὐλίδι Ἰφιγένεια· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔοικεν ἡ ἱκετεύουσα τῇ ὑστέρᾳ.\nχρὴ δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἤθεσιν ὁμοίως ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τῇ τῶν πραγμάτων συστάσει ἀεὶ ζητεῖν ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον ἢ τὸ εἰκός,\n[Bekker 1454a line 35]\nὥστε τὸν τοιοῦτον τὰ τοιαῦτα λέγειν ἢ πράττειν ἢ ἀναγκαῖον ἢ εἰκὸς καὶ τοῦτο μετὰ τοῦτο γίνεσθαι ἢ ἀναγκαῖον ἢ εἰκός.\nφανερὸν οὖν ὅτι καὶ τὰς λύσεις τῶν μύθων ἐξ αὐτοῦ δεῖ τοῦ\n[Bekker 1454b]\n[Bekker 1454b line 1]\nμύθου συμβαίνειν, καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ ἐν τῇ Μηδείᾳ ἀπὸ μηχανῆς καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰλιάδι τὰ περὶ τὸν ἀπόπλουν.\nἀλλὰ μηχανῇ χρηστέον ἐπὶ τὰ ἔξω τοῦ δράματος, ἢ ὅσα πρὸ τοῦ γέγονεν ἃ οὐχ οἷόν τε ἄνθρωπον εἰδέναι, ἢ ὅσα ὕστερον, ἃ\n[Bekker 1454b line 5]\nδεῖται προαγορεύσεως καὶ ἀγγελίας· ἅπαντα γὰρ ἀποδίδομεν τοῖς θεοῖς ὁρᾶν.\nἄλογον δὲ μηδὲν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν, εἰ δὲ μή, ἔξω τῆς τραγῳδίας, οἷον τὸ ἐν τῷ Οἰδίποδι τῷ Σοφοκλέους.\nἐπεὶ δὲ μίμησίς ἐστιν ἡ τραγῳδία βελτιόνων ἢ ἡμεῖς, δεῖ μιμεῖσθαι τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς\n[Bekker 1454b line 10]\nεἰκονογράφους· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι ἀποδιδόντες τὴν ἰδίαν μορφὴν ὁμοίους ποιοῦντες καλλίους γράφουσιν· οὕτω καὶ τὸν ποιητὴν μιμούμενον καὶ ὀργίλους καὶ ῥᾳθύμους καὶ τἆλλα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἔχοντας ἐπὶ τῶν ἠθῶν τοιούτους ὄντας ἐπιεικεῖς ποιεῖν † παράδειγμα σκληρότητος οἷον τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἀγαθὸν καὶ Ὅμηρος †.\n[Bekker 1454b line 15]\nταῦτα δὴ διατηρεῖν, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις τὰ παρὰ τὰς ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀκολουθούσας αἰσθήσεις τῇ ποιητικῇ· καὶ γὰρ κατ’ αὐτὰς ἔστιν ἁμαρτάνειν πολλάκις· εἴρηται δὲ περὶ αὐτῶν ἐν τοῖς ἐκδεδομένοις λόγοις ἱκανῶς.\n\n### Chapter 16\n\nἀναγνώρισις δὲ τί μέν ἐστιν, εἴρηται πρότερον· εἴδη\n[Bekker 1454b line 20]\nδὲ ἀναγνωρίσεως, πρώτη μὲν ἡ ἀτεχνοτάτη καὶ ᾗ πλείστῃ χρῶνται δι’ ἀπορίαν, ἡ διὰ τῶν σημείων.\nτούτων δὲ τὰ μὲν σύμφυτα, οἷον λόγχην ἣν φοροῦσι Γηγενεῖς\nἢ ἀστέρας οἵους ἐν τῷ Θυέστῃ Καρκίνος, τὰ δὲ ἐπίκτητα, καὶ τούτων τὰ μὲν ἐν τῷ σώματι, οἷον οὐλαί, τὰ δὲ ἐκτός, οἷον τὰ\n[Bekker 1454b line 25]\nπεριδέραια καὶ οἷον ἐν τῇ Τυροῖ διὰ τῆς σκάφης.\nἔστιν δὲ καὶ τούτοις χρῆσθαι ἢ βέλτιον ἢ χεῖρον, οἷον Ὀδυσσεὺς διὰ τῆς οὐλῆς ἄλλως ἀνεγνωρίσθη ὑπὸ τῆς τροφοῦ καὶ ἄλλως ὑπὸ τῶν συβοτῶν·\nεἰσὶ γὰρ αἱ μὲν πίστεως ἕνεκα ἀτεχνότεραι, καὶ αἱ τοιαῦται πᾶσαι, αἱ δὲ ἐκ περιπετείας, ὥσπερ\n[Bekker 1454b line 30]\nἡ ἐν τοῖς Νίπτροις, βελτίους.\nδεύτεραι δὲ αἱ πεποιημέναι ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ, διὸ ἄτεχνοι. οἷον Ὀρέστης ἐν τῇ Ἰφιγενείᾳ ἀνεγνώρισεν ὅτι Ὀρέστης· ἐκείνη μὲν γὰρ διὰ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, ἐκεῖνος δὲ αὐτὸς λέγει ἃ βούλεται ὁ ποιητὴς ἀλλ’\n[Bekker 1454b line 35]\nοὐχ ὁ μῦθος·\nδιὸ ἐγγύς τι τῆς εἰρημένης ἁμαρτίας ἐστίν, ἐξῆν γὰρ ἂν ἔνια καὶ ἐνεγκεῖν. καὶ ἐν τῷ Σοφοκλέους Τηρεῖ ἡ τῆς κερκίδος φωνή.\nἡ τρίτη διὰ μνήμης, τῷ αἰσθέσθαι\n[Bekker 1455a]\n[Bekker 1455a line 1]\nτι ἰδόντα, ὥσπερ ἡ ἐν Κυπρίοις τοῖς Δικαιογένους, ἰδὼν γὰρ τὴν γραφὴν ἔκλαυσεν, καὶ ἡ ἐν Ἀλκίνου ἀπολόγῳ, ἀκούων γὰρ τοῦ κιθαριστοῦ καὶ μνησθεὶς ἐδάκρυσεν, ὅθεν ἀνεγνωρίσθησαν.\nτετάρτη δὲ ἡ ἐκ συλλογισμοῦ, οἷον ἐν Χοηφόροις, ὅτι\n[Bekker 1455a line 5]\nὅμοιός τις ἐλήλυθεν, ὅμοιος δὲ οὐθεὶς ἀλλ’ ἢ Ὀρέστης, οὗτος ἄρα ἐλήλυθεν. καὶ ἡ Πολυίδου τοῦ σοφιστοῦ περὶ τῆς Ἰφιγενείας· εἰκὸς γὰρ ἔφη τὸν Ὀρέστην συλλογίσασθαι ὅτι ἥ τ’ ἀδελφὴ ἐτύθη καὶ αὐτῷ συμβαίνει θύεσθαι. καὶ ἐν τῷ Θεοδέκτου Τυδεῖ, ὅτι ἐλθὼν ὡς εὑρήσων τὸν υἱὸν αὐτὸς\n[Bekker 1455a line 10]\nἀπόλλυται. καὶ ἡ ἐν τοῖς Φινείδαις· ἰδοῦσαι γὰρ τὸν τόπον συνελογίσαντο τὴν εἱμαρμένην ὅτι ἐν τούτῳ εἵμαρτο ἀποθανεῖν αὐταῖς, καὶ γὰρ ἐξετέθησαν ἐνταῦθα.\nἔστιν δέ τις καὶ συνθετὴ ἐκ παραλογισμοῦ τοῦ θεάτρου, οἷον ἐν τῷ Ὀδυσσεῖ τῷ\n[Bekker 1455a line 14]\nψευδαγγέλῳ· τὸ μὲν γὰρ τὸ τόξον ἐντείνειν, ἄλλον δὲ\n[Bekker 1455a line 14a]\nμηδένα, πεποιημένον ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ καὶ ὑπόθεσις,\n[Bekker 1455a line 14b]\nκαὶ εἴ γε τὸ τόξον ἔφη γνώσεσθαι ὃ οὐχ\n[Bekker 1455a line 15]\nἑωράκει· τὸ δὲ ὡς δι’ ἐκείνου ἀναγνωριοῦντος διὰ τούτου ποιῆσαι παραλογισμός.\nπασῶν δὲ βελτίστη ἀναγνώρισις ἡ ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων, τῆς ἐκπλήξεως γιγνομένης δι’ εἰκότων, οἷον ἐν τῷ Σοφοκλέους Οἰδίποδι καὶ τῇ Ἰφιγενείᾳ· εἰκὸς γὰρ βούλεσθαι ἐπιθεῖναι γράμματα. αἱ γὰρ τοιαῦται\n[Bekker 1455a line 20]\nμόναι ἄνευ τῶν πεποιημένων σημείων καὶ περιδεραίων.\nδεύτεραι δὲ αἱ ἐκ συλλογισμοῦ.\n\n### Chapter 17\n\nδεῖ δὲ τοὺς μύθους συνιστάναι καὶ τῇ λέξει συναπεργάζεσθαι ὅτι μάλιστα πρὸ ὀμμάτων τιθέμενον· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἐναργέστατα ὁρῶν ὥσπερ παρ’ αὐτοῖς γιγνόμενος τοῖς\n[Bekker 1455a line 25]\nπραττομένοις εὑρίσκοι τὸ πρέπον καὶ ἥκιστα ἂν λανθάνοι τὰ ὑπεναντία.\nσημεῖον δὲ τούτου ὃ ἐπετιμᾶτο Καρκίνῳ. ὁ γὰρ Ἀμφιάραος ἐξ ἱεροῦ ἀνῄει, ὃ μὴ ὁρῶντα ἐλάνθανεν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς σκηνῆς ἐξέπεσεν δυσχερανάντων τοῦτο τῶν θεατῶν.\nὅσα δὲ δυνατὸν καὶ τοῖς σχήμασιν\n[Bekker 1455a line 30]\nσυναπεργαζόμενον· πιθανώτατοι γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆς φύσεως οἱ ἐν τοῖς πάθεσίν εἰσιν, καὶ χειμαίνει ὁ χειμαζόμενος καὶ χαλεπαίνει ὁ ὀργιζόμενος ἀληθινώτατα.\nδιὸ εὐφυοῦς ἡ ποιητική ἐστιν ἢ μανικοῦ· τούτων γὰρ οἱ μὲν εὔπλαστοι οἱ δὲ ἐκστατικοί εἰσιν.\nτούς τε λόγους καὶ τοὺς πεποιημένους δεῖ καὶ\n[Bekker 1455b]\n[Bekker 1455b line 1]\nαὐτὸν ποιοῦντα ἐκτίθεσθαι καθόλου, εἶθ’ οὕτως ἐπεισοδιοῦν καὶ παρατείνειν.\nλέγω δὲ οὕτως ἂν θεωρεῖσθαι τὸ καθόλου, οἷον τῆς Ἰφιγενείας· τυθείσης τινὸς κόρης καὶ ἀφανισθείσης ἀδήλως τοῖς θύσασιν, ἱδρυνθείσης δὲ εἰς ἄλλην χώραν, ἐν ᾗ\n[Bekker 1455b line 5]\nνόμος ἦν τοὺς ξένους θύειν τῇ θεῷ, ταύτην ἔσχε τὴν ἱερωσύνην· χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον τῷ ἀδελφῷ συνέβη ἐλθεῖν τῆς ἱερείας, τὸ δὲ ὅτι ἀνεῖλεν ὁ θεὸς ἐλθεῖν ἐκεῖ καὶ ἐφ’ ὅ τι δὲ ἔξω τοῦ μύθου· ἐλθὼν δὲ καὶ ληφθεὶς θύεσθαι μέλλων ἀνεγνώρισεν, εἴθ’ ὡς\n[Bekker 1455b line 10]\nΕὐριπίδης εἴθ’ ὡς Πολύιδος ἐποίησεν, κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς εἰπὼν ὅτι οὐκ ἄρα μόνον τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδει τυθῆναι, καὶ ἐντεῦθεν ἡ σωτηρία.\nμετὰ ταῦτα δὲ ἤδη ὑποθέντα τὰ ὀνόματα ἐπεισοδιοῦν·\nὅπως δὲ ἔσται οἰκεῖα τὰ ἐπεισόδια, οἷον ἐν τῷ Ὀρέστῃ ἡ μανία δι’ ἧς ἐλήφθη καὶ ἡ\n[Bekker 1455b line 15]\nσωτηρία διὰ τῆς καθάρσεως.\nἐν μὲν οὖν τοῖς δράμασιν τὰ ἐπεισόδια σύντομα, ἡ δ’ τούτοις μηκύνεται.\nτῆς γὰρ Ὀδυσσείας οὐ μακρὸς ὁ λόγος ἐστίν· ἀποδημοῦντός τινος ἔτη πολλὰ καὶ παραφυλαττομένου ὑπὸ τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος καὶ μόνου ὄντος, ἔτι δὲ τῶν οἴκοι οὕτως ἐχόντων ὥστε τὰ\n[Bekker 1455b line 20]\nχρήματα ὑπὸ μνηστήρων ἀναλίσκεσθαι καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἐπιβουλεύεσθαι, αὐτὸς δὲ ἀφικνεῖται χειμασθείς, καὶ ἀναγνωρίσας τινὰς ἐπιθέμενος αὐτὸς μὲν ἐσώθη τοὺς δ’ ἐχθροὺς διέφθειρε.\nτὸ μὲν οὖν ἴδιον τοῦτο, τὰ δ’ ἄλλα ἐπεισόδια.\n\n### Chapter 18\n\nἔστι δὲ πάσης τραγῳδίας τὸ μὲν δέσις τὸ δὲ λύσις,\n[Bekker 1455b line 25]\nτὰ μὲν ἔξωθεν καὶ ἔνια τῶν ἔσωθεν πολλάκις ἡ δέσις, τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἡ λύσις·\nλέγω δὲ δέσιν μὲν εἶναι τὴν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς μέχρι τούτου τοῦ μέρους ὃ ἔσχατόν ἐστιν ἐξ οὗ μεταβαίνει εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἢ εἰς ἀτυχίαν, λύσιν δὲ τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς μεταβάσεως μέχρι τέλους·\nὥσπερ ἐν τῷ Λυγκεῖ τῷ Θεοδέκτου\n[Bekker 1455b line 30]\nδέσις μὲν τά τε προπεπραγμένα καὶ ἡ τοῦ παιδίου λῆψις καὶ πάλιν ἡ αὐτῶν λύσις δ’ ἡ ἀπὸ τῆς αἰτιάσεως τοῦ θανάτου μέχρι τοῦ τέλους.\nτραγῳδίας δὲ εἴδη εἰσὶ τέσσαρα (τοσαῦτα γὰρ καὶ τὰ μέρη ἐλέχθη),\nἡ μὲν πεπλεγμένη, ἧς τὸ ὅλον ἐστὶν περιπέτεια καὶ ἀναγνώρισις,\nἡ δὲ παθητική, οἷον οἵ τε\n[Bekker 1456a]\n[Bekker 1456a line 1]\nΑἴαντες καὶ οἱ Ἰξίονες,\nἡ δὲ ἠθική, οἷον αἱ Φθιώτιδες καὶ ὁ Πηλεύς·\nτὸ δὲ τέταρτον † οης †, οἷον αἵ τε Φορκίδες καὶ ὁ Προμηθεὺς καὶ ὅσα ἐν ᾅδου.\nμάλιστα μὲν οὖν ἅπαντα δεῖ πειρᾶσθαι ἔχειν, εἰ δὲ μή, τὰ μέγιστα καὶ πλεῖστα, ἄλλως τε\n[Bekker 1456a line 5]\nκαὶ ὡς νῦν συκοφαντοῦσιν τοὺς ποιητάς· γεγονότων γὰρ καθ’ ἕκαστον μέρος ἀγαθῶν ποιητῶν, ἑκάστου τοῦ ἰδίου ἀγαθοῦ ἀξιοῦσι τὸν ἕνα ὑπερβάλλειν.\nδίκαιον δὲ καὶ τραγῳδίαν ἄλλην καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν λέγειν οὐδενὶ ὡς τῷ μύθῳ· τοῦτο δέ, ὧν ἡ αὐτὴ πλοκὴ καὶ λύσις.\nπολλοὶ δὲ πλέξαντες εὖ\n[Bekker 1456a line 10]\nλύουσι κακῶς·\nδεῖ δὲ ἀμφότερα ἀρτικροτεῖσθαι.\nχρὴ δὲ ὅπερ εἴρηται πολλάκις μεμνῆσθαι καὶ μὴ ποιεῖν ἐποποιικὸν σύστημα τραγῳδίαν—ἐποποιικὸν δὲ λέγω τὸ πολύμυθον— οἷον εἴ τις τὸν τῆς Ἰλιάδος ὅλον ποιοῖ μῦθον.\nἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ διὰ τὸ μῆκος λαμβάνει τὰ μέρη τὸ πρέπον μέγεθος, ἐν\n[Bekker 1456a line 15]\nδὲ τοῖς δράμασι πολὺ παρὰ τὴν ὑπόληψιν ἀποβαίνει.\nσημεῖον δέ, ὅσοι πέρσιν Ἰλίου ὅλην ἐποίησαν καὶ μὴ κατὰ μέρος ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδης, ἢ Νιόβην καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ Αἰσχύλος, ἢ ἐκπίπτουσιν ἢ κακῶς ἀγωνίζονται, ἐπεὶ καὶ Ἀγάθων ἐξέπεσεν ἐν τούτῳ μόνῳ.\nἐν δὲ ταῖς περιπετείαις καὶ ἐν τοῖς\n[Bekker 1456a line 20]\nἁπλοῖς πράγμασι στοχάζονται ὧν βούλονται θαυμαστῶς· τραγικὸν γὰρ τοῦτο καὶ φιλάνθρωπον.\nἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο, ὅταν ὁ σοφὸς μὲν μετὰ πονηρίας δ’ ἐξαπατηθῇ, ὥσπερ Σίσυφος, καὶ ὁ ἀνδρεῖος μὲν ἄδικος δὲ ἡττηθῇ.\nἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο καὶ εἰκὸς ὥσπερ Ἀγάθων λέγει, εἰκὸς γὰρ γίνεσθαι πολλὰ\n[Bekker 1456a line 25]\nκαὶ παρὰ τὸ εἰκός.\nκαὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ.\nτοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν· διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος\n[Bekker 1456a line 30]\nἈγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου. καίτοι τί διαφέρει ἢ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδειν ἢ εἰ ῥῆσιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἁρμόττοι ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον;\n\n### Chapter 19\n\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν ἄλλων εἰδῶν εἴρηται, λοιπὸν δὲ περὶ λέξεως καὶ διανοίας εἰπεῖν.\nτὰ μὲν οὖν περὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἐν\n[Bekker 1456a line 35]\nτοῖς περὶ ῥητορικῆς κείσθω· τοῦτο γὰρ ἴδιον μᾶλλον ἐκείνης τῆς μεθόδου.\nἔστι δὲ κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν ταῦτα, ὅσα ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου δεῖ παρασκευασθῆναι.\nμέρη δὲ τούτων τό τε ἀποδεικνύναι καὶ τὸ λύειν καὶ τὸ πάθη παρασκευάζειν (οἷον\n[Bekker 1456b]\n[Bekker 1456b line 1]\nἔλεον ἢ φόβον ἢ ὀργὴν καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα) καὶ ἔτι μέγεθος καὶ μικρότητας.\nδῆλον δὲ ὅτι καὶ ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν ἀπὸ τῶν αὐτῶν ἰδεῶν δεῖ χρῆσθαι ὅταν ἢ ἐλεεινὰ ἢ δεινὰ ἢ μεγάλα ἢ εἰκότα δέῃ παρασκευάζειν·\nπλὴν τοσοῦτον\n[Bekker 1456b line 5]\nδιαφέρει, ὅτι τὰ μὲν δεῖ φαίνεσθαι ἄνευ διδασκαλίας, τὰ δὲ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ λέγοντος παρασκευάζεσθαι καὶ παρὰ τὸν λόγον γίγνεσθαι. τί γὰρ ἂν εἴη τοῦ λέγοντος ἔργον, εἰ φαίνοιτο ᾗ δέοι καὶ μὴ διὰ τὸν λόγον;\nτῶν δὲ περὶ τὴν λέξιν ἓν μέν ἐστιν εἶδος θεωρίας τὰ σχήματα τῆς λέξεως,\n[Bekker 1456b line 10]\nἅ ἐστιν εἰδέναι τῆς ὑποκριτικῆς καὶ τοῦ τὴν τοιαύτην ἔχοντος ἀρχιτεκτονικήν, οἷον τί ἐντολὴ καὶ τί εὐχὴ καὶ διήγησις καὶ ἀπειλὴ καὶ ἐρώτησις καὶ ἀπόκρισις καὶ εἴ τι ἄλλο τοιοῦτον.\nπαρὰ γὰρ τὴν τούτων γνῶσιν ἢ ἄγνοιαν οὐδὲν εἰς τὴν ποιητικὴν ἐπιτίμημα φέρεται ὅ τι καὶ ἄξιον\n[Bekker 1456b line 15]\nσπουδῆς. τί γὰρ ἄν τις ὑπολάβοι ἡμαρτῆσθαι ἃ Πρωταγόρας ἐπιτιμᾷ, ὅτι εὔχεσθαι οἰόμενος ἐπιτάττει εἰπὼν μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά;\nτὸ γὰρ κελεῦσαι, φησίν, ποιεῖν τι ἢ μὴ ἐπίταξίς ἐστιν.\nδιὸ παρείσθω ὡς ἄλλης καὶ οὐ τῆς ποιητικῆς ὂν θεώρημα.\n\n### Chapter 20\n\n[Bekker 1456b line 20]\nτῆς δὲ λέξεως ἁπάσης τάδ’ ἐστὶ τὰ μέρη, στοιχεῖον συλλαβὴ σύνδεσμος ὄνομα ῥῆμα ἄρθρον πτῶσις λόγος.\nστοιχεῖον μὲν οὖν ἐστιν φωνὴ ἀδιαίρετος, οὐ πᾶσα δὲ ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἧς πέφυκε συνθετὴ γίγνεσθαι φωνή· καὶ γὰρ τῶν θηρίων εἰσὶν ἀδιαίρετοι φωναί, ὧν οὐδεμίαν λέγω στοιχεῖον.\nταύτης\n[Bekker 1456b line 25]\nδὲ μέρη τό τε φωνῆεν καὶ τὸ ἡμίφωνον καὶ ἄφωνον. ἔστιν δὲ ταῦτα φωνῆεν μὲν τὸ ἄνευ προσβολῆς ἔχον φωνὴν ἀκουστήν, ἡμίφωνον δὲ τὸ μετὰ προσβολῆς ἔχον φωνὴν ἀκουστήν, οἷον τὸ Σ καὶ τὸ Ρ, ἄφωνον δὲ τὸ μετὰ προσβολῆς καθ’ αὑτὸ μὲν οὐδεμίαν ἔχον φωνήν, μετὰ δὲ\n[Bekker 1456b line 30]\nτῶν ἐχόντων τινὰ φωνὴν γινόμενον ἀκουστόν, οἷον τὸ Γ καὶ τὸ Δ.\nταῦτα δὲ διαφέρει σχήμασίν τε τοῦ στόματος καὶ τόποις καὶ δασύτητι καὶ ψιλότητι καὶ μήκει καὶ βραχύτητι ἔτι δὲ ὀξύτητι καὶ βαρύτητι καὶ τῷ μέσῳ· περὶ ὧν καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐν τοῖς μετρικοῖς προσήκει θεωρεῖν.\nσυλλαβὴ\n[Bekker 1456b line 35]\nδέ ἐστιν φωνὴ ἄσημος συνθετὴ ἐξ ἀφώνου καὶ φωνὴν ἔχοντος· καὶ γὰρ τὸ ΓΡ ἄνευ τοῦ Α † συλλαβὴ καὶ † μετὰ τοῦ Α, οἷον τὸ ΓΡΑ. ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτων θεωρῆσαι τὰς διαφορὰς τῆς μετρικῆς ἐστιν.\nσύνδεσμος δέ ἐστιν φωνὴ ἄσημος ἣ οὔτε\n[Bekker 1457a]\n[Bekker 1457a line 1]\nκωλύει οὔτε ποιεῖ φωνὴν μίαν σημαντικὴν ἐκ πλειόνων φωνῶν πεφυκυῖα συντίθεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου ἣν μὴ ἁρμόττει ἐν ἀρχῇ λόγου τιθέναι καθ’ αὑτήν, οἷον μέν ἤτοι δέ. ἢ φωνὴ ἄσημος ἣ ἐκ πλειόνων μὲν\n[Bekker 1457a line 5]\nφωνῶν μιᾶς σημαντικῶν δὲ ποιεῖν πέφυκεν μίαν σημαντικὴν φωνήν.\nἄρθρον δ’ ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἄσημος ἣ λόγου ἀρχὴν ἢ τέλος ἢ διορισμὸν δηλοῖ. οἷον τὸ ἀμφί καὶ τὸ περί καὶ τὰ ἄλλα. ἢ φωνὴ ἄσημος ἣ οὔτε κωλύει οὔτε ποιεῖ φωνὴν μίαν σημαντικὴν ἐκ πλειόνων φωνῶν πεφυκυῖα τίθεσθαι\n[Bekker 1457a line 10]\nκαὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου.\nὄνομα δέ ἐστι φωνὴ συνθετὴ σημαντικὴ ἄνευ χρόνου ἧς μέρος οὐδέν ἐστι καθ’ αὑτὸ σημαντικόν· ἐν γὰρ τοῖς διπλοῖς οὐ χρώμεθα ὡς καὶ αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ σημαῖνον, οἷον ἐν τῷ Θεόδωρος τὸ δωρος οὐ σημαίνει.\nῥῆμα δὲ φωνὴ συνθετὴ σημαντικὴ μετὰ\n[Bekker 1457a line 15]\nχρόνου ἧς οὐδὲν μέρος σημαίνει καθ’ αὑτό, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἄνθρωπος ἢ λευκόν οὐ σημαίνει τὸ πότε, τὸ δὲ βαδίζει ἢ βεβάδικεν προσσημαίνει τὸ μὲν τὸν παρόντα χρόνον τὸ δὲ τὸν παρεληλυθότα.\nπτῶσις δ’ ἐστὶν ὀνόματος ἢ ῥήματος ἡ μὲν κατὰ τὸ τούτου ἢ τούτῳ\n[Bekker 1457a line 20]\nσημαῖνον καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, ἡ δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἑνὶ ἢ πολλοῖς, οἷον ἄνθρωποι ἢ ἄνθρωπος, ἡ δὲ κατὰ τὰ ὑποκριτικά, οἷον κατ’ ἐρώτησιν ἐπίταξιν· τὸ γὰρ ἐβάδισεν; ἢ βάδιζε πτῶσις ῥήματος κατὰ ταῦτα τὰ εἴδη ἐστίν.\nλόγος δὲ φωνὴ συνθετὴ σημαντικὴ ἧς ἔνια μέρη καθ’ αὑτὰ σημαίνει τι\n(οὐ γὰρ ἅπας λόγος ἐκ ῥημάτων καὶ ὀνομάτων σύγκειται, οἷον ὁ\n[Bekker 1457a line 25]\nτοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁρισμός, ἀλλ’ ἐνδέχεται ἄνευ ῥημάτων εἶναι λόγον, μέρος μέντοι ἀεί τι σημαῖνον ἕξει) οἷον ἐν τῷ βαδίζει Κλέων ὁ Κλέων.\nεἷς δέ ἐστι λόγος διχῶς, ἢ γὰρ ὁ ἓν σημαίνων, ἢ ὁ ἐκ πλειόνων συνδέσμῳ, οἷον ἡ Ἰλιὰς μὲν\n[Bekker 1457a line 30]\nσυνδέσμῳ εἷς, ὁ δὲ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τῷ ἓν σημαίνειν.\n\n### Chapter 21\n\nὀνόματος δὲ εἴδη τὸ μὲν ἁπλοῦν, ἁπλοῦν δὲ λέγω ὃ μὴ ἐκ σημαινόντων σύγκειται, οἷον γῆ, τὸ δὲ διπλοῦν·\nτούτου δὲ τὸ μὲν ἐκ σημαίνοντος καὶ ἀσήμου, πλὴν οὐκ ἐν τῷ\n[Bekker 1457a line 33a]\nὀνόματι σημαίνοντος καὶ ἀσήμου, τὸ δὲ ἐκ σημαινόντων σύγκειται.\nεἴη δ’ ἂν καὶ τριπλοῦν καὶ τετραπλοῦν ὄνομα καὶ\n[Bekker 1457a line 35]\nπολλαπλοῦν, οἷον τὰ πολλὰ τῶν Μασσαλιωτῶν,\n[Bekker 1457b]\n[Bekker 1457b line 1]\nἙρμοκαϊκόξανθος...\nἅπαν δὲ ὄνομά ἐστιν ἢ κύριον ἢ γλῶττα ἢ μεταφορὰ ἢ κόσμος ἢ πεποιημένον ἢ ἐπεκτεταμένον ἢ ὑφῃρημένον ἢ ἐξηλλαγμένον.\nλέγω δὲ κύριον μὲν ᾧ χρῶνται ἕκαστοι,\nγλῶτταν δὲ ᾧ ἕτεροι· ὥστε φανερὸν ὅτι καὶ\n[Bekker 1457b line 5]\nγλῶτταν καὶ κύριον εἶναι δυνατὸν τὸ αὐτό, μὴ τοῖς αὐτοῖς δέ· τὸ γὰρ σίγυνον Κυπρίοις μὲν κύριον, ἡμῖν δὲ γλῶττα.\nμεταφορὰ δέ ἐστιν ὀνόματος ἀλλοτρίου ἐπιφορὰ ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ γένους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ τὸ γένος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ κατὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον.\nλέγω δὲ ἀπὸ γένους μὲν ἐπὶ\n[Bekker 1457b line 10]\nεἶδος οἷον νηῦς δέ μοι ἥδ’ ἕστηκεν· τὸ γὰρ ὁρμεῖν ἐστιν ἑστάναι τι.\nἀπ’ εἴδους δὲ ἐπὶ γένος ἦ δὴ μυρί’ Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐσθλὰ ἔοργεν· τὸ γὰρ μυρίον πολύ ἐστιν, ᾧ νῦν ἀντὶ τοῦ πολλοῦ κέχρηται.\nἀπ’ εἴδους δὲ ἐπὶ εἶδος οἷον χαλκῷ ἀπὸ ψυχὴν ἀρύσας καὶ τεμὼν ταναήκεϊ χαλκῷ· ἐνταῦθα\n[Bekker 1457b line 15]\nγὰρ τὸ μὲν ἀρύσαι ταμεῖν, τὸ δὲ ταμεῖν ἀρύσαι εἴρηκεν· ἄμφω γὰρ ἀφελεῖν τί ἐστιν.\nτὸ δὲ ἀνάλογον λέγω, ὅταν ὁμοίως ἔχῃ τὸ δεύτερον πρὸς τὸ πρῶτον καὶ τὸ τέταρτον πρὸς τὸ τρίτον· ἐρεῖ γὰρ ἀντὶ τοῦ δευτέρου τὸ τέταρτον ἢ ἀντὶ τοῦ τετάρτου τὸ δεύτερον.\nκαὶ ἐνίοτε προστιθέασιν ἀνθ’ οὗ λέγει\n[Bekker 1457b line 20]\nπρὸς ὅ ἐστι. λέγω δὲ οἷον ὁμοίως ἔχει φιάλη πρὸς Διόνυσον καὶ ἀσπὶς πρὸς Ἄρη· ἐρεῖ τοίνυν τὴν φιάλην ἀσπίδα Διονύσου καὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα φιάλην Ἄρεως.\nἢ ὃ γῆρας πρὸς βίον, καὶ ἑσπέρα πρὸς ἡμέραν· ἐρεῖ τοίνυν τὴν ἑσπέραν γῆρας ἡμέρας ἢ ὥσπερ\n[Bekker 1457b line 25]\nἘμπεδοκλῆς, καὶ τὸ γῆρας ἑσπέραν βίου ἢ δυσμὰς βίου.\nἐνίοις δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν ὄνομα κείμενον τῶν ἀνάλογον, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν ἧττον ὁμοίως λεχθήσεται· οἷον τὸ τὸν καρπὸν μὲν ἀφιέναι σπείρειν, τὸ δὲ τὴν φλόγα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνώνυμον· ἀλλ’ ὁμοίως ἔχει τοῦτο πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὸ σπείρειν πρὸς τὸν καρπόν, διὸ εἴρηται σπείρων θεοκτίσταν\n[Bekker 1457b line 30]\nφλόγα.\nἔστι δὲ τῷ τρόπῳ τούτῳ τῆς μεταφορᾶς χρῆσθαι καὶ ἄλλως, προσαγορεύσαντα τὸ ἀλλότριον ἀποφῆσαι τῶν οἰκείων τι,\nοἷον εἰ τὴν ἀσπίδα εἴποι φιάλην μὴ Ἄρεως ἀλλ’ ἄοινον...\nπεποιημένον δ’ ἐστὶν ὃ ὅλως μὴ καλούμενον ὑπὸ τινῶν αὐτὸς τίθεται ὁ ποιητής, δοκεῖ γὰρ ἔνια εἶναι τοιαῦτα, οἷον\n[Bekker 1457b line 35]\nτὰ κέρατα ἔρνυγας καὶ τὸν ἱερέα ἀρητῆρα.\nἐπεκτεταμένον\n[Bekker 1458a]\n[Bekker 1458a line 1]\nδέ ἐστιν ἢ ἀφῃρημένον, τὸ μὲν ἐὰν φωνήεντι μακροτέρῳ κεχρημένον ᾖ τοῦ οἰκείου ἢ συλλαβῇ ἐμβεβλημένῃ, τὸ δὲ ἂν ἀφῃρημένον τι ᾖ αὐτοῦ,\nἐπεκτεταμένον μὲν οἷον τὸ πόλεως πόληος καὶ τὸ Πηλείδου Πηληιάδεω, ἀφῃρημένον δὲ οἷον τὸ\n[Bekker 1458a line 5]\nκρῖ καὶ τὸ δῶ καὶ μία γίνεται ἀμφοτέρων ὄψ.\nἐξηλλαγμένον δ’ ἐστὶν ὅταν τοῦ ὀνομαζομένου τὸ μὲν καταλείπῃ τὸ δὲ ποιῇ, οἷον τὸ δεξιτερὸν κατὰ μαζόν ἀντὶ τοῦ δεξιόν.\nαὐτῶν δὲ τῶν ὀνομάτων τὰ μὲν ἄρρενα τὰ δὲ θήλεα τὰ δὲ μεταξύ,\nἄρρενα μὲν ὅσα τελευτᾷ εἰς τὸ Ν καὶ Ρ καὶ Σ\n[Bekker 1458a line 10]\nκαὶ ὅσα ἐκ τούτου σύγκειται (ταῦτα δ’ ἐστὶν δύο, Ψ καὶ Ξ), θήλεα δὲ ὅσα ἐκ τῶν φωνηέντων εἴς τε τὰ ἀεὶ μακρά,\nοἷον εἰς Η καὶ Ω, καὶ τῶν ἐπεκτεινομένων εἰς Α·\nὥστε ἴσα συμβαίνει πλήθει εἰς ὅσα τὰ ἄρρενα καὶ τὰ θήλεα· τὸ γὰρ Ψ καὶ τὸ Ξ σύνθετά ἐστιν.\nεἰς δὲ ἄφωνον οὐδὲν ὄνομα τελευτᾷ, οὐδὲ εἰς\n[Bekker 1458a line 15]\nφωνῆεν βραχύ.\nεἰς δὲ τὸ Ι τρία μόνον, μέλι κόμμι πέπερι. εἰς δὲ τὸ Υ πέντε. τὰ δὲ μεταξὺ εἰς ταῦτα καὶ Ν καὶ Σ.\n\n### Chapter 22\n\nλέξεως δὲ ἀρετὴ σαφῆ καὶ μὴ ταπεινὴν εἶναι.\nσαφεστάτη μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ἡ ἐκ τῶν κυρίων ὀνομάτων, ἀλλὰ\n[Bekker 1458a line 20]\nταπεινή· παράδειγμα δὲ ἡ Κλεοφῶντος ποίησις καὶ ἡ Σθενέλου.\nσεμνὴ δὲ καὶ ἐξαλλάττουσα τὸ ἰδιωτικὸν ἡ τοῖς ξενικοῖς κεχρημένη· ξενικὸν δὲ λέγω γλῶτταν καὶ μεταφορὰν καὶ ἐπέκτασιν καὶ πᾶν τὸ παρὰ τὸ κύριον.\nἀλλ’ ἄν τις ἅπαντα τοιαῦτα ποιήσῃ, ἢ αἴνιγμα ἔσται ἢ\n[Bekker 1458a line 25]\nβαρβαρισμός· ἂν μὲν οὖν ἐκ μεταφορῶν, αἴνιγμα, ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ γλωττῶν, βαρβαρισμός.\nαἰνίγματός τε γὰρ ἰδέα αὕτη ἐστί, τὸ λέγοντα ὑπάρχοντα ἀδύνατα συνάψαι· κατὰ μὲν οὖν τὴν τῶν ἄλλων ὀνομάτων σύνθεσιν οὐχ οἷόν τε τοῦτο ποιῆσαι, κατὰ δὲ τὴν μεταφορῶν ἐνδέχεται, οἷον ἄνδρ’ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν\n[Bekker 1458a line 30]\nἐπ’ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα.\nτὰ δὲ ἐκ τῶν γλωττῶν βαρβαρισμός.\nδεῖ ἄρα κεκρᾶσθαί πως τούτοις· τὸ μὲν γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἰδιωτικὸν ποιήσει μηδὲ ταπεινόν, οἷον ἡ γλῶττα καὶ ἡ μεταφορὰ καὶ ὁ κόσμος καὶ τἆλλα τὰ εἰρημένα\n[Bekker 1458a line 34]\nεἴδη, τὸ δὲ κύριον τὴν σαφήνειαν.\nοὐκ ἐλάχιστον δὲ μέρος\n[Bekker 1458b]\n[Bekker 1458b line 1]\nσυμβάλλεται εἰς τὸ σαφὲς τῆς λέξεως καὶ μὴ ἰδιωτικὸν αἱ ἐπεκτάσεις καὶ ἀποκοπαὶ καὶ ἐξαλλαγαὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων· διὰ μὲν γὰρ τὸ ἄλλως ἔχειν ἢ ὡς τὸ κύριον παρὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς γιγνόμενον τὸ μὴ ἰδιωτικὸν ποιήσει, διὰ δὲ τὸ\n[Bekker 1458b line 5]\nκοινωνεῖν τοῦ εἰωθότος τὸ σαφὲς ἔσται.\nὥστε οὐκ ὀρθῶς ψέγουσιν οἱ ἐπιτιμῶντες τῷ τοιούτῳ τρόπῳ τῆς διαλέκτου καὶ διακωμῳδοῦντες τὸν ποιητήν, οἷον Εὐκλείδης ὁ ἀρχαῖος, ὡς ῥᾴδιον ὂν ποιεῖν εἴ τις δώσει ἐκτείνειν ἐφ’ ὁπόσον βούλεται, ἰαμβοποιήσας ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ λέξει Ἐπιχάρην εἶδον\n[Bekker 1458b line 10]\nΜαραθῶνάδε βαδίζοντα, καὶ οὐκ † ἂν γεράμενος † τὸν ἐκείνου ἐλλέβορον.\nτὸ μὲν οὖν φαίνεσθαί πως χρώμενον τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ γελοῖον· τὸ δὲ μέτρον κοινὸν ἁπάντων ἐστὶ τῶν μερῶν·\nκαὶ γὰρ μεταφοραῖς καὶ γλώτταις καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις εἴδεσι χρώμενος ἀπρεπῶς καὶ ἐπίτηδες ἐπὶ τὰ γελοῖα τὸ\n[Bekker 1458b line 15]\nαὐτὸ ἂν ἀπεργάσαιτο.\nτὸ δὲ ἁρμόττον ὅσον διαφέρει ἐπὶ τῶν ἐπῶν θεωρείσθω ἐντιθεμένων τῶν ὀνομάτων εἰς τὸ μέτρον.\nκαὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γλώττης δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν μεταφορῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἰδεῶν μετατιθεὶς ἄν τις τὰ κύρια ὀνόματα κατίδοι ὅτι ἀληθῆ λέγομεν· οἷον τὸ αὐτὸ ποιήσαντος\n[Bekker 1458b line 20]\nἰαμβεῖον Αἰσχύλου καὶ Εὐριπίδου, ἓν δὲ μόνον ὄνομα μεταθέντος, ἀντὶ κυρίου εἰωθότος γλῶτταν, τὸ μὲν φαίνεται καλὸν τὸ δ’ εὐτελές. Αἰσχύλος μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῷ Φιλοκτήτῃ ἐποίησε φαγέδαιναν ἥ μου σάρκας ἐσθίει ποδός,\nὁ δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ ἐσθίει τὸ θοινᾶται μετέθηκεν. καὶ\n[Bekker 1458b line 25]\nνῦν δέ μ’ ἐὼν ὀλίγος τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καὶ ἀεικής,\nεἴ τις λέγοι τὰ κύρια μετατιθεὶς νῦν δέ μ’ ἐὼν μικρός τε καὶ ἀσθενικὸς καὶ ἀειδής·\nκαὶ δίφρον ἀεικέλιον καταθεὶς ὀλίγην τε τράπεζαν,\n[Bekker 1458b line 30]\nδίφρον μοχθηρὸν καταθεὶς μικράν τε τράπεζαν·\nκαὶ τὸ ἠιόνες βοόωσιν, ἠιόνες κράζουσιν.\nἔτι δὲ Ἀριφράδης τοὺς τραγῳδοὺς ἐκωμῴδει ὅτι ἃ οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴπειεν ἐν τῇ διαλέκτῳ τούτοις χρῶνται, οἷον τὸ δωμάτων ἄπο ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀπὸ δωμάτων, καὶ τὸ σέθεν καὶ τὸ ἐγὼ δέ νιν καὶ τὸ\n[Bekker 1459a]\n[Bekker 1459a line 1]\nἈχιλλέως πέρι ἀλλὰ μὴ περὶ Ἀχιλλέως, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα.\nδιὰ γὰρ τὸ μὴ εἶναι ἐν τοῖς κυρίοις ποιεῖ τὸ μὴ ἰδιωτικὸν ἐν τῇ λέξει ἅπαντα τὰ τοιαῦτα· ἐκεῖνος δὲ τοῦτο ἠγνόει.\nἔστιν δὲ μέγα μὲν τὸ ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰρημένων\n[Bekker 1459a line 5]\nπρεπόντως χρῆσθαι, καὶ διπλοῖς ὀνόμασι καὶ γλώτταις, πολὺ δὲ μέγιστον τὸ μεταφορικὸν εἶναι.\nμόνον γὰρ τοῦτο οὔτε παρ’ ἄλλου ἔστι λαβεῖν εὐφυΐας τε σημεῖόν ἐστι· τὸ γὰρ εὖ μεταφέρειν τὸ τὸ ὅμοιον θεωρεῖν ἐστιν.\nτῶν δ’ ὀνομάτων τὰ μὲν διπλᾶ μάλιστα ἁρμόττει τοῖς διθυράμβοις, αἱ δὲ\n[Bekker 1459a line 10]\nγλῶτται τοῖς ἡρωικοῖς, αἱ δὲ μεταφοραὶ τοῖς ἰαμβείοις.\nκαὶ ἐν μὲν τοῖς ἡρωικοῖς ἅπαντα χρήσιμα τὰ εἰρημένα, ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἰαμβείοις διὰ τὸ ὅτι μάλιστα λέξιν μιμεῖσθαι ταῦτα ἁρμόττει τῶν ὀνομάτων ὅσοις κἂν ἐν λόγοις τις χρήσαιτο· ἔστι δὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα τὸ κύριον καὶ μεταφορὰ καὶ κόσμος.\n[Bekker 1459a line 15]\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τραγῳδίας καὶ τῆς ἐν τῷ πράττειν μιμήσεως ἔστω ἡμῖν ἱκανὰ τὰ εἰρημένα.\n\n### Chapter 23\n\nπερὶ δὲ τῆς διηγηματικῆς καὶ ἐν μέτρῳ μιμητικῆς, ὅτι δεῖ τοὺς μύθους καθάπερ ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις συνιστάναι δραματικοὺς καὶ περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν ὅλην καὶ τελείαν\n[Bekker 1459a line 20]\nἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ μέσα καὶ τέλος, ἵν’ ὥσπερ ζῷον ἓν ὅλον ποιῇ τὴν οἰκείαν ἡδονήν, δῆλον,\nκαὶ μὴ ὁμοίας ἱστορίαις τὰς συνθέσεις εἶναι, ἐν αἷς ἀνάγκη οὐχὶ μιᾶς πράξεως ποιεῖσθαι δήλωσιν ἀλλ’ ἑνὸς χρόνου, ὅσα ἐν τούτῳ συνέβη περὶ ἕνα ἢ πλείους, ὧν ἕκαστον ὡς ἔτυχεν ἔχει πρὸς ἄλληλα.\nὥσπερ\n[Bekker 1459a line 25]\nγὰρ κατὰ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους ἥ τ’ ἐν Σαλαμῖνι ἐγένετο ναυμαχία καὶ ἡ ἐν Σικελίᾳ Καρχηδονίων μάχη οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸ αὐτὸ συντείνουσαι τέλος, οὕτω καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐφεξῆς χρόνοις ἐνίοτε γίνεται θάτερον μετὰ θάτερον, ἐξ ὧν ἓν οὐδὲν γίνεται τέλος.\nσχεδὸν δὲ οἱ πολλοὶ τῶν ποιητῶν τοῦτο\n[Bekker 1459a line 30]\nδρῶσι.\nδιὸ ὥσπερ εἴπομεν ἤδη καὶ ταύτῃ θεσπέσιος ἂν φανείη Ὅμηρος παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους, τῷ μηδὲ τὸν πόλεμον καίπερ ἔχοντα ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος ἐπιχειρῆσαι ποιεῖν ὅλον· λίαν γὰρ ἂν μέγας καὶ οὐκ εὐσύνοπτος ἔμελλεν ἔσεσθαι ὁ μῦθος, ἢ τῷ μεγέθει μετριάζοντα καταπεπλεγμένον τῇ ποικιλίᾳ.\n[Bekker 1459a line 35]\nνῦν δ’ ἓν μέρος ἀπολαβὼν ἐπεισοδίοις κέχρηται αὐτῶν πολλοῖς, οἷον νεῶν καταλόγῳ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐπεισοδίοις διαλαμβάνει τὴν ποίησιν.\nοἱ δ’ ἄλλοι περὶ ἕνα ποιοῦσι καὶ\n[Bekker 1459b]\n[Bekker 1459b line 1]\nπερὶ ἕνα χρόνον καὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν πολυμερῆ, οἷον ὁ τὰ Κύπρια ποιήσας καὶ τὴν μικρὰν Ἰλιάδα.\nτοιγαροῦν ἐκ μὲν Ἰλιάδος καὶ Ὀδυσσείας μία τραγῳδία ποιεῖται ἑκατέρας ἢ δύο μόναι, ἐκ δὲ Κυπρίων πολλαὶ καὶ τῆς μικρᾶς\n[Bekker 1459b line 5]\nἸλιάδος.\n\n### Chapter 24\n\nἔτι δὲ τὰ εἴδη ταὐτὰ δεῖ ἔχειν τὴν ἐποποιίαν τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ, ἢ γὰρ ἁπλῆν ἢ πεπλεγμένην ἢ ἠθικὴν ἢ\n[Bekker 1459b line 10]\nπαθητικήν·\nκαὶ τὰ μέρη ἔξω μελοποιίας καὶ ὄψεως ταὐτά· καὶ γὰρ περιπετειῶν δεῖ καὶ ἀναγνωρίσεων καὶ παθημάτων· ἔτι τὰς διανοίας καὶ τὴν λέξιν ἔχειν καλῶς.\nοἷς ἅπασιν Ὅμηρος κέχρηται καὶ πρῶτος καὶ ἱκανῶς. καὶ γὰρ τῶν ποιημάτων ἑκάτερον συνέστηκεν ἡ μὲν Ἰλιὰς ἁπλοῦν\n[Bekker 1459b line 15]\nκαὶ παθητικόν, ἡ δὲ Ὀδύσσεια πεπλεγμένον (ἀναγνώρισις γὰρ διόλου) καὶ ἠθική· πρὸς δὲ τούτοις λέξει καὶ διανοίᾳ πάντα ὑπερβέβληκεν.\nδιαφέρει δὲ κατά τε τῆς συστάσεως τὸ μῆκος ἡ ἐποποιία καὶ τὸ μέτρον.\nτοῦ μὲν οὖν μήκους ὅρος ἱκανὸς ὁ εἰρημένος· δύνασθαι γὰρ δεῖ συνορᾶσθαι τὴν ἀρχὴν\n[Bekker 1459b line 20]\nκαὶ τὸ τέλος. εἴη δ’ ἂν τοῦτο, εἰ τῶν μὲν ἀρχαίων ἐλάττους αἱ συστάσεις εἶεν, πρὸς δὲ τὸ πλῆθος τραγῳδιῶν τῶν εἰς μίαν ἀκρόασιν τιθεμένων παρήκοιεν.\nἔχει δὲ πρὸς τὸ ἐπεκτείνεσθαι τὸ μέγεθος πολύ τι ἡ ἐποποιία ἴδιον διὰ τὸ ἐν μὲν τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ μὴ ἐνδέχεσθαι ἅμα πραττόμενα\n[Bekker 1459b line 25]\nπολλὰ μέρη μιμεῖσθαι ἀλλὰ τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς καὶ τῶν ὑποκριτῶν μέρος μόνον· ἐν δὲ τῇ ἐποποιίᾳ διὰ τὸ διήγησιν εἶναι ἔστι πολλὰ μέρη ἅμα ποιεῖν περαινόμενα, ὑφ’ ὧν οἰκείων ὄντων αὔξεται ὁ τοῦ ποιήματος ὄγκος.\nὥστε τοῦτ’ ἔχει τὸ ἀγαθὸν εἰς μεγαλοπρέπειαν καὶ τὸ μεταβάλλειν τὸν\n[Bekker 1459b line 30]\nἀκούοντα καὶ ἐπεισοδιοῦν ἀνομοίοις ἐπεισοδίοις· τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον ταχὺ πληροῦν ἐκπίπτειν ποιεῖ τὰς τραγῳδίας.\nτὸ δὲ μέτρον τὸ ἡρωικὸν ἀπὸ τῆς πείρας ἥρμοκεν. εἰ γάρ τις ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ μέτρῳ διηγηματικὴν μίμησιν ποιοῖτο ἢ ἐν πολλοῖς, ἀπρεπὲς ἂν φαίνοιτο·\nτὸ γὰρ ἡρωικὸν στασιμώτατον καὶ\n[Bekker 1459b line 35]\nὀγκωδέστατον τῶν μέτρων ἐστίν (διὸ καὶ γλώττας καὶ μεταφορὰς δέχεται μάλιστα· περιττὴ γὰρ καὶ ἡ διηγηματικὴ μίμησις τῶν ἄλλων),\nτὸ δὲ ἰαμβεῖον καὶ τετράμετρον\n[Bekker 1460a]\n[Bekker 1460a line 1]\nκινητικὰ καὶ τὸ μὲν ὀρχηστικὸν τὸ δὲ πρακτικόν.\nἔτι δὲ ἀτοπώτερον εἰ μιγνύοι τις αὐτά, ὥσπερ Χαιρήμων.\nδιὸ οὐδεὶς μακρὰν σύστασιν ἐν ἄλλῳ πεποίηκεν ἢ τῷ ἡρῴῳ, ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ εἴπομεν αὐτὴ ἡ φύσις διδάσκει τὸ ἁρμόττον αὐτῇ\n[Bekker 1460a line 5]\nαἱρεῖσθαι.\nὍμηρος δὲ ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἄξιος ἐπαινεῖσθαι καὶ δὴ καὶ ὅτι μόνος τῶν ποιητῶν οὐκ ἀγνοεῖ ὃ δεῖ ποιεῖν αὐτόν.\nαὐτὸν γὰρ δεῖ τὸν ποιητὴν ἐλάχιστα λέγειν· οὐ γάρ ἐστι κατὰ ταῦτα μιμητής. οἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλοι αὐτοὶ μὲν δι’ ὅλου ἀγωνίζονται, μιμοῦνται δὲ ὀλίγα καὶ ὀλιγάκις· ὁ δὲ ὀλίγα\n[Bekker 1460a line 10]\nφροιμιασάμενος εὐθὺς εἰσάγει ἄνδρα ἢ γυναῖκα ἢ ἄλλο τι ἦθος, καὶ οὐδέν’ ἀήθη ἀλλ’ ἔχοντα ἦθος.\nδεῖ μὲν οὖν ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις ποιεῖν τὸ θαυμαστόν, μᾶλλον δ’ ἐνδέχεται ἐν\n[Bekker 1460a line 13]\nτῇ ἐποποιίᾳ τὸ ἄλογον, δι’ ὃ συμβαίνει μάλιστα τὸ θαυμαστόν, διὰ τὸ μὴ ὁρᾶν εἰς τὸν πράττοντα·\nἐπεὶ τὰ περὶ\n[Bekker 1460a line 15]\nτὴν Ἕκτορος δίωξιν ἐπὶ σκηνῆς ὄντα γελοῖα ἂν φανείη, οἱ μὲν ἑστῶτες καὶ οὐ διώκοντες, ὁ δὲ ἀνανεύων, ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἔπεσιν λανθάνει.\nτὸ δὲ θαυμαστὸν ἡδύ· σημεῖον δέ, πάντες γὰρ προστιθέντες ἀπαγγέλλουσιν ὡς χαριζόμενοι.\nδεδίδαχεν δὲ μάλιστα Ὅμηρος καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ψευδῆ λέγειν ὡς δεῖ.\n[Bekker 1460a line 20]\nἔστι δὲ τοῦτο παραλογισμός. οἴονται γὰρ οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ὅταν τουδὶ ὄντος τοδὶ ᾖ ἢ γινομένου γίνηται, εἰ τὸ ὕστερον ἔστιν, καὶ τὸ πρότερον εἶναι ἢ γίνεσθαι· τοῦτο δέ ἐστι ψεῦδος. διὸ δεῖ, ἂν τὸ πρῶτον ψεῦδος, ἄλλο δὲ τούτου ὄντος ἀνάγκη εἶναι ἢ γενέσθαι ᾖ, προσθεῖναι· διὰ γὰρ τὸ τοῦτο εἰδέναι ἀληθὲς ὂν\n[Bekker 1460a line 25]\nπαραλογίζεται ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ πρῶτον ὡς ὄν. παράδειγμα δὲ τούτου τὸ ἐκ τῶν Νίπτρων.\nπροαιρεῖσθαί τε δεῖ ἀδύνατα εἰκότα μᾶλλον ἢ δυνατὰ ἀπίθανα·\nτούς τε λόγους μὴ συνίστασθαι ἐκ μερῶν ἀλόγων, ἀλλὰ μάλιστα μὲν μηδὲν ἔχειν ἄλογον, εἰ δὲ μή, ἔξω τοῦ μυθεύματος, ὥσπερ\n[Bekker 1460a line 30]\nΟἰδίπους τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι πῶς ὁ Λάιος ἀπέθανεν, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐν τῷ δράματι, ὥσπερ ἐν Ἠλέκτρᾳ οἱ τὰ Πύθια ἀπαγγέλλοντες ἢ ἐν Μυσοῖς ὁ ἄφωνος ἐκ Τεγέας εἰς τὴν Μυσίαν ἥκων.\nὥστε τὸ λέγειν ὅτι ἀνῄρητο ἂν ὁ μῦθος γελοῖον· ἐξ ἀρχῆς γὰρ οὐ δεῖ συνίστασθαι τοιούτους. † ἂν δὲ θῇ καὶ φαίνηται\n[Bekker 1460a line 35]\nεὐλογωτέρως ἐνδέχεσθαι καὶ ἄτοπον †\nἐπεὶ καὶ τὰ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ ἄλογα τὰ περὶ τὴν ἔκθεσιν ὡς οὐκ ἂν ἦν ἀνεκτὰ δῆλον ἂν\n[Bekker 1460b]\n[Bekker 1460b line 1]\nγένοιτο, εἰ αὐτὰ φαῦλος ποιητὴς ποιήσειε· νῦν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀγαθοῖς ὁ ποιητὴς ἀφανίζει ἡδύνων τὸ ἄτοπον.\nτῇ δὲ λέξει δεῖ διαπονεῖν ἐν τοῖς ἀργοῖς μέρεσιν καὶ μήτε ἠθικοῖς μήτε διανοητικοῖς· ἀποκρύπτει γὰρ πάλιν ἡ λίαν λαμπρὰ\n[Bekker 1460b line 5]\nλέξις τά τε ἤθη καὶ τὰς διανοίας.\n\n### Chapter 25\n\nπερὶ δὲ προβλημάτων καὶ λύσεων, ἐκ πόσων τε καὶ ποίων εἰδῶν ἐστιν, ὧδ’ ἂν θεωροῦσιν γένοιτ’ ἂν φανερόν.\nἐπεὶ γάρ ἐστι μιμητὴς ὁ ποιητὴς ὡσπερανεὶ ζωγράφος ἤ τις ἄλλος εἰκονοποιός, ἀνάγκη μιμεῖσθαι τριῶν ὄντων τὸν\n[Bekker 1460b line 10]\nἀριθμὸν ἕν τι ἀεί, ἢ γὰρ οἷα ἦν ἢ ἔστιν, ἢ οἷά φασιν καὶ δοκεῖ, ἢ οἷα εἶναι δεῖ.\nταῦτα δ’ ἐξαγγέλλεται λέξει ἐν ᾗ καὶ γλῶτται καὶ μεταφοραὶ καὶ πολλὰ πάθη τῆς λέξεώς ἐστι·\nδίδομεν γὰρ ταῦτα τοῖς ποιηταῖς. πρὸς δὲ τούτοις οὐχ ἡ αὐτὴ ὀρθότης ἐστὶν τῆς πολιτικῆς καὶ τῆς ποιητικῆς οὐδὲ ἄλλης\n[Bekker 1460b line 15]\nτέχνης καὶ ποιητικῆς.\nαὐτῆς δὲ τῆς ποιητικῆς διττὴ ἁμαρτία, ἡ μὲν γὰρ καθ’ αὑτήν, ἡ δὲ κατὰ συμβεβηκός.\nεἰ μὲν γὰρ προείλετο μιμήσασθαι... ἀδυναμίαν, αὐτῆς ἡ ἁμαρτία· εἰ δὲ τὸ προελέσθαι μὴ ὀρθῶς, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἵππον ἅμ’ ἄμφω τὰ δεξιὰ προβεβληκότα, ἢ τὸ καθ’ ἑκάστην τέχνην ἁμάρτημα,\n[Bekker 1460b line 20]\nοἷον τὸ κατ’ ἰατρικὴν ἢ ἄλλην τέχνην ὁποιανοῦν, οὐ καθ’ ἑαυτήν.\nὥστε δεῖ τὰ ἐπιτιμήματα ἐν τοῖς προβλήμασιν ἐκ τούτων ἐπισκοποῦντα λύειν. πρῶτον μὲν τὰ πρὸς αὐτὴν τὴν τέχνην· ἀδύνατα πεποίηται, ἡμάρτηται·\nἀλλ’ ὀρθῶς ἔχει, εἰ τυγχάνει τοῦ τέλους τοῦ αὑτῆς (τὸ γὰρ\n[Bekker 1460b line 25]\nτέλος εἴρηται), εἰ οὕτως ἐκπληκτικώτερον ἢ αὐτὸ ἢ ἄλλο ποιεῖ μέρος. παράδειγμα ἡ τοῦ Ἕκτορος δίωξις.\nεἰ μέντοι τὸ τέλος ἢ μᾶλλον ἢ μὴ ἧττον ἐνεδέχετο ὑπάρχειν καὶ κατὰ τὴν περὶ τούτων τέχνην, οὐκ ὀρθῶς· δεῖ γὰρ εἰ ἐνδέχεται ὅλως μηδαμῇ ἡμαρτῆσθαι.\nἔτι ποτέρων ἐστὶ τὸ\n[Bekker 1460b line 30]\nἁμάρτημα, τῶν κατὰ τὴν τέχνην ἢ κατ’ ἄλλο συμβεβηκός; ἔλαττον γὰρ εἰ μὴ ᾔδει ὅτι ἔλαφος θήλεια κέρατα οὐκ ἔχει ἢ εἰ ἀμιμήτως ἔγραψεν.\nπρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἐὰν ἐπιτιμᾶται ὅτι οὐκ ἀληθῆ, ἀλλ’ ἴσως ὡς δεῖ, οἷον καὶ Σοφοκλῆς ἔφη αὐτὸς μὲν οἵους δεῖ ποιεῖν, Εὐριπίδην δὲ οἷοι εἰσίν, ταύτῃ\n[Bekker 1460b line 35]\nλυτέον.\nεἰ δὲ μηδετέρως, ὅτι οὕτω φασίν, οἷον τὰ περὶ θεῶν·\nἴσως γὰρ οὔτε βέλτιον οὕτω λέγειν οὔτ’ ἀληθῆ, ἀλλ’ εἰ ἔτυχεν\n[Bekker 1461a]\n[Bekker 1461a line 1]\nὥσπερ Ξενοφάνει· ἀλλ’ οὖν φασι.\nτὰ δὲ ἴσως οὐ βέλτιον μέν, ἀλλ’ οὕτως εἶχεν, οἷον τὰ περὶ τῶν ὅπλων, ἔγχεα δέ σφιν ὄρθ’ ἐπὶ σαυρωτῆρος· οὕτω γὰρ τότ’ ἐνόμιζον, ὥσπερ καὶ νῦν Ἰλλυριοί.\nπερὶ δὲ τοῦ καλῶς ἢ μὴ καλῶς\n[Bekker 1461a line 5]\nεἰ εἴρηταί τινι ἢ πέπρακται, οὐ μόνον σκεπτέον εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ πεπραγμένον ἢ εἰρημένον βλέποντα εἰ σπουδαῖον ἢ φαῦλον, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰς τὸν πράττοντα ἢ λέγοντα πρὸς ὃν ἢ ὅτε ἢ ὅτῳ ἢ οὗ ἕνεκεν, οἷον εἰ μείζονος ἀγαθοῦ, ἵνα γένηται, ἢ μείζονος κακοῦ, ἵνα ἀπογένηται.\nτὰ δὲ πρὸς τὴν\n[Bekker 1461a line 10]\nλέξιν ὁρῶντα δεῖ διαλύειν, οἷον γλώττῃ τὸ οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον· ἴσως γὰρ οὐ τοὺς ἡμιόνους λέγει ἀλλὰ τοὺς φύλακας· καὶ τὸν Δόλωνα, ὅς ῥ’ ἦ τοι εἶδος μὲν ἔην κακός, οὐ τὸ σῶμα ἀσύμμετρον ἀλλὰ τὸ πρόσωπον αἰσχρόν, τὸ γὰρ εὐειδὲς οἱ Κρῆτες τὸ εὐπρόσωπον καλοῦσι· καὶ τὸ\n[Bekker 1461a line 15]\nζωρότερον δὲ κέραιε οὐ τὸ ἄκρατον ὡς οἰνόφλυξιν ἀλλὰ τὸ θᾶττον.\nτὸ δὲ κατὰ μεταφορὰν εἴρηται, οἷον πάντες μέν ῥα θεοί τε καὶ ἀνέρες εὗδον παννύχιοι· ἅμα δέ φησιν ἦ τοι ὅτ’ ἐς πεδίον τὸ Τρωικὸν ἀθρήσειεν, αὐλῶν συρίγγων τε ὅμαδον· τὸ γὰρ πάντες ἀντὶ τοῦ πολλοί κατὰ\n[Bekker 1461a line 20]\nμεταφορὰν εἴρηται, τὸ γὰρ πᾶν πολύ τι. καὶ τὸ οἴη δ’ ἄμμορος κατὰ μεταφοράν, τὸ γὰρ γνωριμώτατον μόνον.\nκατὰ δὲ προσῳδίαν, ὥσπερ Ἱππίας ἔλυεν ὁ Θάσιος, τὸ δίδομεν δέ οἱ εὖχος ἀρέσθαι καὶ τὸ μὲν οὗ καταπύθεται ὄμβρῳ.\nτὰ δὲ διαιρέσει, οἷον Ἐμπεδοκλῆς αἶψα δὲ θνήτ’ ἐφύοντο τὰ πρὶν\n[Bekker 1461a line 25]\nμάθον ἀθάνατ’ εἶναι ζωρά τε πρὶν κέκρητο.\nτὰ δὲ ἀμφιβολίᾳ, παρῴχηκεν δὲ πλέω νύξ· τὸ γὰρ πλείω ἀμφίβολόν ἐστιν.\nτὰ δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἔθος τῆς λέξεως. τὸν κεκραμένον οἶνόν φασιν εἶναι, ὅθεν πεποίηται κνημὶς νεοτεύκτου κασσιτέροιο· καὶ χαλκέας τοὺς τὸν σίδηρον ἐργαζομένους, ὅθεν εἴρηται ὁ\n[Bekker 1461a line 30]\nΓανυμήδης Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν, οὐ πινόντων οἶνον. εἴη δ’ ἂν τοῦτό γε καὶ κατὰ μεταφοράν.\nδεῖ δὲ καὶ ὅταν ὄνομά τι ὑπεναντίωμά τι δοκῇ σημαίνειν, ἐπισκοπεῖν ποσαχῶς ἂν σημήνειε τοῦτο ἐν τῷ εἰρημένῳ, οἷον τῷ τῇ ῥ’ ἔσχετο χάλκεον ἔγχος τὸ ταύτῃ κωλυθῆναι ποσαχῶς ἐνδέχεται,\nὡδὶ ἢ ὡδί, ὡς\n[Bekker 1461a line 35]\nμάλιστ’ ἄν τις ὑπολάβοι· κατὰ τὴν καταντικρὺ\nἢ ὡς\n[Bekker 1461b]\n[Bekker 1461b line 1]\nΓλαύκων λέγει, ὅτι ἔνιοι ἀλόγως προϋπολαμβάνουσί τι καὶ αὐτοὶ καταψηφισάμενοι συλλογίζονται, καὶ ὡς εἰρηκότος ὅ τι δοκεῖ ἐπιτιμῶσιν, ἂν ὑπεναντίον ᾖ τῇ αὑτῶν οἰήσει.\nτοῦτο δὲ πέπονθε τὰ περὶ Ἰκάριον. οἴονται γὰρ αὐτὸν Λάκωνα\n[Bekker 1461b line 5]\nεἶναι· ἄτοπον οὖν τὸ μὴ ἐντυχεῖν τὸν Τηλέμαχον αὐτῷ εἰς Λακεδαίμονα ἐλθόντα. τὸ δ’ ἴσως ἔχει ὥσπερ οἱ Κεφαλλῆνές φασι· παρ’ αὑτῶν γὰρ γῆμαι λέγουσι τὸν Ὀδυσσέα καὶ εἶναι Ἰκάδιον ἀλλ’ οὐκ Ἰκάριον· δι’ ἁμάρτημα δὲ τὸ πρόβλημα † εἰκός ἐστιν †.\nὅλως δὲ τὸ ἀδύνατον μὲν πρὸς τὴν\n[Bekker 1461b line 10]\nποίησιν ἢ πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον ἢ πρὸς τὴν δόξαν δεῖ ἀνάγειν.\nπρός τε γὰρ τὴν ποίησιν αἱρετώτερον πιθανὸν ἀδύνατον ἢ ἀπίθανον καὶ δυνατόν·\n... τοιούτους εἶναι οἷον Ζεῦξις ἔγραφεν, ἀλλὰ βέλτιον· τὸ γὰρ παράδειγμα δεῖ ὑπερέχειν.\nπρὸς ἅ φασιν τἄλογα·οὕτω τε καὶ ὅτι ποτὲ οὐκ ἄλογόν\n[Bekker 1461b line 15]\nἐστιν· εἰκὸς γὰρ καὶ παρὰ τὸ εἰκὸς γίνεσθαι.\nτὰ δ’ ὑπεναντίως εἰρημένα οὕτω σκοπεῖν ὥσπερ οἱ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἔλεγχοι εἰ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ πρὸς τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ ὡσαύτως, ὥστε καὶ † αὐτὸν † ἢ πρὸς ἃ αὐτὸς λέγει ἢ ὃ ἂν φρόνιμος ὑποθῆται.\nὀρθὴ δ’ ἐπιτίμησις καὶ ἀλογίᾳ καὶ μοχθηρίᾳ, ὅταν μὴ\n[Bekker 1461b line 20]\nἀνάγκης οὔσης μηθὲν χρήσηται τῷ ἀλόγῳ, ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδης τῷ Αἰγεῖ, ἢ τῇ πονηρίᾳ, ὥσπερ ἐν Ὀρέστῃ τῇ τοῦ Μενελάου.\nτὰ μὲν οὖν ἐπιτιμήματα ἐκ πέντε εἰδῶν φέρουσιν· ἢ γὰρ ὡς ἀδύνατα ἢ ὡς ἄλογα ἢ ὡς βλαβερὰ ἢ ὡς ὑπεναντία ἢ ὡς παρὰ τὴν ὀρθότητα τὴν κατὰ τέχνην. αἱ δὲ λύσεις ἐκ τῶν\n[Bekker 1461b line 25]\nεἰρημένων ἀριθμῶν σκεπτέαι. εἰσὶν δὲ δώδεκα.\n\n### Chapter 26\n\nπότερον δὲ βελτίων ἡ ἐποποιικὴ μίμησις ἢ ἡ τραγική, διαπορήσειεν ἄν τις.\nεἰ γὰρ ἡ ἧττον φορτικὴ βελτίων, τοιαύτη δ’ ἡ πρὸς βελτίους θεατάς ἐστιν ἀεί, λίαν δῆλον ὅτι ἡ ἅπαντα μιμουμένη φορτική·\nὡς γὰρ οὐκ αἰσθανομένων ἂν\n[Bekker 1461b line 30]\nμὴ αὐτὸς προσθῇ, πολλὴν κίνησιν κινοῦνται, οἷον οἱ φαῦλοι αὐληταὶ κυλιόμενοι ἂν δίσκον δέῃ μιμεῖσθαι, καὶ ἕλκοντες τὸν κορυφαῖον ἂν Σκύλλαν αὐλῶσιν.\nἡ μὲν οὖν τραγῳδία τοιαύτη ἐστίν, ὡς καὶ οἱ πρότερον τοὺς ὑστέρους αὐτῶν ᾤοντο ὑποκριτάς· ὡς λίαν γὰρ ὑπερβάλλοντα πίθηκον ὁ Μυννίσκος\n[Bekker 1461b line 35]\nτὸν Καλλιππίδην ἐκάλει, τοιαύτη δὲ δόξα καὶ περὶ\n[Bekker 1462a]\n[Bekker 1462a line 1]\nΠινδάρου ἦν· ὡς δ’ οὗτοι ἔχουσι πρὸς αὐτούς, ἡ ὅλη τέχνη πρὸς τὴν ἐποποιίαν ἔχει.\nτὴν μὲν οὖν πρὸς θεατὰς ἐπιεικεῖς φασιν εἶναι οἳ οὐδὲν δέονται τῶν σχημάτων, τὴν δὲ τραγικὴν πρὸς φαύλους· εἰ οὖν φορτική, χείρων δῆλον ὅτι ἂν εἴη.\nπρῶτον μὲν\n[Bekker 1462a line 5]\nοὐ τῆς ποιητικῆς ἡ κατηγορία ἀλλὰ τῆς ὑποκριτικῆς, ἐπεὶ ἔστι περιεργάζεσθαι τοῖς σημείοις καὶ ῥαψῳδοῦντα, ὅπερ Σωσίστρατος, καὶ διᾴδοντα, ὅπερ ἐποίει Μνασίθεος ὁ Ὀπούντιος.\nεἶτα οὐδὲ κίνησις ἅπασα ἀποδοκιμαστέα, εἴπερ μηδ’ ὄρχησις, ἀλλ’ ἡ φαύλων, ὅπερ καὶ Καλλιππίδῃ ἐπετιμᾶτο καὶ νῦν\n[Bekker 1462a line 10]\nἄλλοις ὡς οὐκ ἐλευθέρας γυναῖκας μιμουμένων.\nἔτι ἡ τραγῳδία καὶ ἄνευ κινήσεως ποιεῖ τὸ αὑτῆς, ὥσπερ ἡ ἐποποιία· διὰ γὰρ τοῦ ἀναγινώσκειν φανερὰ ὁποία τίς ἐστιν· εἰ οὖν ἐστι τά γ’ ἄλλα κρείττων, τοῦτό γε οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον αὐτῇ ὑπάρχειν.\nἔπειτα διότι πάντ’ ἔχει ὅσαπερ ἡ ἐποποιία\n(καὶ γὰρ τῷ\n[Bekker 1462a line 15]\nμέτρῳ ἔξεστι χρῆσθαι), καὶ ἔτι οὐ μικρὸν μέρος τὴν μουσικήν, δι’ ἧς αἱ ἡδοναὶ συνίστανται ἐναργέστατα·\nεἶτα καὶ τὸ ἐναργὲς ἔχει καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀναγνώσει καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἔργων·\nἔτι τῷ ἐν ἐλάττονι μήκει τὸ τέλος τῆς μιμήσεως\n[Bekker 1462b]\n[Bekker 1462b line 1]\nεἶναι (τὸ γὰρ ἀθροώτερον ἥδιον ἢ πολλῷ κεκραμένον τῷ χρόνῳ, λέγω δ’ οἷον εἴ τις τὸν Οἰδίπουν θείη τὸν Σοφοκλέους ἐν ἔπεσιν ὅσοις ἡ Ἰλιάς)·\nἔτι ἧττον μία ἡ μίμησις ἡ τῶν ἐποποιῶν (σημεῖον δέ, ἐκ γὰρ ὁποιασοῦν μιμήσεως πλείους\n[Bekker 1462b line 5]\nτραγῳδίαι γίνονται), ὥστε ἐὰν μὲν ἕνα μῦθον ποιῶσιν, ἢ βραχέως δεικνύμενον μύουρον φαίνεσθαι, ἢ ἀκολουθοῦντα τῷ τοῦ μέτρου μήκει ὑδαρῆ· λέγω δὲ οἷον ἐὰν ἐκ πλειόνων πράξεων ᾖ συγκειμένη,\nὥσπερ ἡ Ἰλιὰς ἔχει πολλὰ τοιαῦτα μέρη καὶ ἡ Ὀδύσσεια ἃ καὶ καθ’\n[Bekker 1462b line 10]\nἑαυτὰ ἔχει μέγεθος· καίτοι ταῦτα τὰ ποιήματα συνέστηκεν ὡς ἐνδέχεται ἄριστα καὶ ὅτι μάλιστα μιᾶς πράξεως μίμησις.\nεἰ οὖν τούτοις τε διαφέρει πᾶσιν καὶ ἔτι τῷ τῆς τέχνης ἔργῳ (δεῖ γὰρ οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν ἡδονὴν ποιεῖν αὐτὰς ἀλλὰ τὴν εἰρημένην), φανερὸν ὅτι κρείττων ἂν εἴη μᾶλλον τοῦ\n[Bekker 1462b line 15]\nτέλους τυγχάνουσα τῆς ἐποποιίας.\nπερὶ μὲν οὖν τραγῳδίας καὶ ἐποποιίας, καὶ αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν καὶ τῶν μερῶν, καὶ πόσα καὶ τί διαφέρει, καὶ τοῦ εὖ ἢ μὴ τίνες αἰτίαι, καὶ περὶ ἐπιτιμήσεων καὶ λύσεων, εἰρήσθω τοσαῦτα....","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/poetics/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_poetics_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from all 26 Ancient Greek chapters with all 279 Bekker markers preserved for fidelity, technical precision, clarity, and structure.","text":"### Chapter 1\n\n[Bekker 1447a]\n[Bekker 1447a line 8]\nLet us speak of the art of poetry, both in itself and in its various kinds: what power each kind possesses, how plots must be constructed\n[Bekker 1447a line 10]\nif the poetic work is to be successful, and further, of how many and what sorts of parts it consists; and likewise of all other matters belonging to the same inquiry. Let us begin, as is natural, first with first principles.\n\nEpic poetry, then, and the poetry of tragedy, as well as comedy and dithyrambic poetry, and most of the art of flute-playing and of lyre-playing, all prove to be, taken as a whole, forms of imitation.\n[Bekker 1447a line 15]\nThey differ from one another in three respects: either by imitating in different media, or by imitating different objects, or by imitating differently and not in the same manner.\n\nFor just as some people imitate many things by portraying them with colors and shapes—some through art,\n[Bekker 1447a line 20]\nothers through practice—while others imitate through the voice, so too in all the arts just mentioned, imitation is produced in rhythm, language, and harmony, these being used either separately or in combination.\n\nFor example, flute-playing and lyre-playing employ harmony and rhythm alone, as do any\n[Bekker 1447a line 25]\nother arts that may possess the same power, such as the playing of pipes;\n\nthe art of dancers employs rhythm by itself, without harmony—for dancers too, through rhythms embodied in their movements, imitate characters, emotions, and actions.\n\nBut the art that employs bare language alone, and that which employs metrical language, whether\n[Bekker 1447b]\n[Bekker 1447b line 8]\ncombining different meters with one another or using some single kind of meter, have remained without a name down to the present day.\n\nFor we have no\n[Bekker 1447b line 10]\ncommon name to give to the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues,\n\nnor to imitations someone might produce in trimeters, elegiac couplets, or any other such meters.\n\nPeople do, however, attach the word “poet” to the meter and call some “elegiac poets” and others “epic poets,” naming them poets not\n[Bekker 1447b line 15]\naccording to their imitation, but applying the term indiscriminately according to their meter.\n\nIndeed, even if writers set forth something medical or scientific in meter, people customarily call them poets. Yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except meter, and so it is right to call the former a poet, but the latter a natural philosopher rather than\n[Bekker 1447b line 20]\na poet.\n\nLikewise, even if someone were to produce an imitation by mixing every kind of meter, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, a mixed rhapsody composed in all meters, he too must be called a poet. Let these matters, then, be distinguished in this way.\n\nThere are also some arts that employ all the\n[Bekker 1447b line 25]\nmeans already mentioned—I mean rhythm, melody, and meter—as do dithyrambic poetry and the poetry of nomes, tragedy, and comedy. They differ, however, in that some use all these means at once, while others use them in separate parts.\n\nThese, then, are what I call the differences among the arts in the media through which they produce their imitation.\n\n### Chapter 2\n\n[Bekker 1448a]\n[Bekker 1448a line 1]\nSince those who imitate imitate people in action, and since these people must be either morally serious or morally base—for characters almost always conform to these distinctions alone, since all people differ in character through vice and virtue—they must represent people either as better than we are, or worse,\n[Bekker 1448a line 5]\nor such as we are, just as painters do.\n\nPolygnotus portrayed people as better, Pauson as worse, and Dionysius as like ourselves.\n\nIt is clear that each of the imitative arts already mentioned will also exhibit these differences, and will be distinct by imitating different objects in this way.\n\nFor these dissimilarities can occur in dancing, flute-playing, and\n[Bekker 1448a line 10]\nlyre-playing,\n\nand also in prose and unaccompanied verse. Thus Homer represents people as better, Cleophon as like ourselves, while Hegemon of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, represent them as worse.\n\nThe same is true of dithyrambs and\n[Bekker 1448a line 15]\nnomes, as Timotheus and Philoxenus might represent the †earth’s† Cyclopes.\n\nIt is through this very difference that tragedy is distinguished from comedy: the latter seeks to imitate people as worse than those of the present day, the former as better.\n\n### Chapter 3\n\nThere is still a third difference among these arts: the manner in which one might imitate each of these objects.\n[Bekker 1448a line 20]\nFor it is possible, using the same media and imitating the same objects, either to narrate—sometimes becoming another person, as Homer does, or speaking in one’s own person without changing—or to present all †those who imitate† as acting and engaged in action.\n\nImitation, then, consists in these three differences,\n[Bekker 1448a line 25]\nas we said at the beginning: the medium, the objects, and the manner.\n\nThus in one respect Sophocles would be the same kind of imitator as Homer, since both imitate morally serious people; but in another respect he would be the same as Aristophanes, since both imitate people acting and doing. Hence, some say, these works are called dramas, because they imitate people doing things.\n\nFor this reason\n[Bekker 1448a line 30]\nthe Dorians lay claim to both tragedy and comedy—the Megarians here claim comedy, saying that it arose under the democracy established among them, as do the Megarians of Sicily, since the poet Epicharmus came from there and lived much earlier than Chionides and Magnes; and some of the Dorians\n[Bekker 1448a line 35]\nin the Peloponnese claim tragedy—making the words themselves their evidence.\n\nThey say that they call the outlying villages kōmai, whereas the Athenians call them dēmoi, and that comic performers were called kōmōdoi not from kōmazein, “to revel,” but because, being dishonored and driven from the city, they wandered from village to village.\n\n[Bekker 1448b]\n[Bekker 1448b line 1]\nThey also say that they themselves use dran for “to do,” whereas the Athenians use prattein.\n\nLet this suffice, then, concerning the differences in imitation, both how many there are and what they are.\n\n### Chapter 4\n\nTwo causes appear to have given rise to the art of poetry as a whole,\n[Bekker 1448b line 5]\nand both are natural.\n\nFirst, imitation is innate in human beings from childhood, and in this they differ from the other animals: the human being is the most imitative of them all and makes his first steps in learning through imitation. Second, everyone takes pleasure in imitations.\n\nEvidence of this lies in what happens\n[Bekker 1448b line 10]\nin actual experience: although we look with pain upon the things themselves, we take pleasure in viewing the most exact images of them—for example, the forms of the most contemptible animals and of corpses.\n\nThe reason for this, too, is that learning gives the greatest pleasure not only to philosophers but equally to others, though they\n[Bekker 1448b line 15]\npartake of it only to a small degree.\n\nFor this reason people take pleasure in seeing images: as they contemplate them, they learn and infer what each thing is—for example, that this man is that one.\n\nFor if one happens not to have seen the subject before, the image will give pleasure not as an imitation, but because of its workmanship, its color, or some other cause of that kind.\n\n[Bekker 1448b line 20]\nSince imitation, harmony, and rhythm are natural to us—and it is clear that meters are parts of rhythms—those who were by nature most gifted in these things gradually developed them from the beginning and brought poetry into being out of improvisations.\n\nPoetry then divided according to the characters proper to its authors:\n[Bekker 1448b line 25]\nthe more dignified represented noble actions and the actions of noble people, while the less elevated represented the actions of the base, at first composing invectives, just as the others composed hymns and encomia.\n\nWe cannot name any such poem by anyone before Homer, though it is likely that there were many;\n\nbut beginning with Homer\n[Bekker 1448b line 30]\nwe can do so—for example, his Margites and other works of that kind. In these, because it was fitting, the iambic meter also appeared; hence it is now called “iambic,” because in this meter people lampooned one another.\n\nAnd so, among the ancient poets, some became poets of heroic verse and others poets of iambics.\n\nAnd just as Homer was preeminently the poet of serious subjects\n[Bekker 1448b line 35]\n—for he alone composed not merely well, but also dramatic imitations—so too he was the first to indicate the form of comedy, by dramatizing not invective but the ridiculous. For the Margites stands in an analogous relation: as the Iliad\n[Bekker 1449a]\n[Bekker 1449a line 1]\nand the Odyssey stand to tragedies, so the Margites stands to comedies.\n\nBut once tragedy and comedy had appeared, those who were drawn toward either kind of poetry in accordance with their own natures became, in the one case, comic poets instead of writers of iambics,\n[Bekker 1449a line 5]\nand in the other, producers of tragedies instead of epic poets, because these forms were greater and more honored than the earlier ones. Whether tragedy has yet developed sufficiently in all its forms or not, and whether it is to be judged in itself or in relation to the theaters, is another question.\n\nAt any rate, having originated in improvisation\n[Bekker 1449a line 10]\n—both tragedy and comedy, tragedy from those who led the dithyramb, and comedy from those who led the phallic songs, which even now survive as established customs in many cities—tragedy gradually grew as poets developed whatever part of it became apparent.\n\nAnd after undergoing many changes,\n[Bekker 1449a line 15]\ntragedy ceased changing once it had attained its own nature.\n\nAeschylus was the first to increase the number of actors from one to two; he reduced the role of the chorus and made dialogue take the leading part. Sophocles introduced three actors and scene-painting.\n\nThere was also the matter of magnitude: beginning with short plots and\n[Bekker 1449a line 20]\nridiculous diction, because it developed out of the satyric form, tragedy acquired dignity only at a late stage; and its meter changed from the tetrameter to the iambic.\n\nAt first poets used the tetrameter because the poetry was satyric and more closely associated with dancing; but once dialogue had developed, its own nature discovered the meter suited to it. For the iambic is the most\n[Bekker 1449a line 25]\nconversational of meters. Evidence of this is that\n\nin conversation with one another we utter iambic lines very often, but hexameters only rarely and when departing from the harmony of ordinary speech.\n\nThere was also the increase in the number of episodes. As for all the other ways in which each element is said to have been embellished,\n[Bekker 1449a line 30]\nlet what has been said suffice;\n\nfor it would perhaps be a great labor to recount each development individually.\n\n### Chapter 5\n\nComedy, as we have said, is an imitation of people who are inferior, though not in respect of every kind of vice; rather, the ridiculous is one part of the ugly.\nFor the ridiculous is\n[Bekker 1449a line 35]\na kind of error and ugliness that is painless and not destructive; for example, the comic mask is something ugly and distorted, but without pain.\nNow the transformations of tragedy, and those through whom they came about, have not escaped notice; but comedy, because it was not\n[Bekker 1449b]\n[Bekker 1449b line 1]\ntaken seriously from the beginning, passed unnoticed. For it was only late that the archon granted a chorus to comic poets; before that, the performers were volunteers.\nOnce comedy had already acquired certain forms of its own, those who are called its poets are remembered. But who introduced masks, or prologues, or\n[Bekker 1449b line 5]\na plurality of actors, and other such things, is unknown.\nThe making of plots originally came from Sicily;\nbut among the Athenians, Crates was the first to abandon the iambic form and begin composing stories and plots of a general nature.\nEpic poetry, then, followed tragedy insofar as it is an imitation of serious subjects\n[Bekker 1449b line 10]\nin metrical language; but they differ in that epic employs a single meter and is narrative.\nThey differ also in length: tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself within a single circuit of the sun, or to exceed it only slightly, whereas epic poetry is unlimited in time and differs in this respect,\nalthough\n[Bekker 1449b line 15]\nat first poets did the same in tragedies as in epics.\nSome of their parts are the same, while others are peculiar to tragedy.\nTherefore, whoever knows what makes a tragedy good or bad also knows about epic poetry; for everything epic poetry possesses belongs to tragedy, but not everything belonging to tragedy is found in\n[Bekker 1449b line 20]\nepic poetry.\n\n### Chapter 6\n\nWe shall speak later about the imitative art in hexameters and about comedy; but let us now speak about tragedy, taking up from what has already been said the definition that emerges of its essential nature.\nTragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,\n[Bekker 1449b line 25]\ncomplete, and of a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of ornament used separately in the different parts, performed by actors and not through narration, accomplishing through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.\nBy “embellished language” I mean language possessing rhythm and harmony;\nand by “each kind used separately,” I mean that some parts are accomplished through meter alone\n[Bekker 1449b line 30]\nand others, in turn, through song.\nSince those who perform the imitation do so by acting, the adornment of spectacle must first of necessity be one part of tragedy; next come song-making and diction, for these are the means through which they perform the imitation.\nBy “diction” I mean the actual composition of the\n[Bekker 1449b line 35]\nmetrical language, and by “song-making” that whose entire power is manifest.\nAnd since tragedy is an imitation of action, and action is performed by certain agents, who must necessarily possess certain qualities both of character and of thought—for it is through these that we also say\n[Bekker 1450a]\n[Bekker 1450a line 1]\nactions possess certain qualities, and it is in accordance with these that everyone succeeds or fails—\nand since plot is the imitation of the action—for by “plot” I mean the\n[Bekker 1450a line 5]\narrangement of the incidents—while character is that according to which we say that the agents possess certain qualities, and thought is found wherever speakers demonstrate something or declare a judgment,\nevery tragedy must therefore have six parts, according to which the tragedy possesses its particular quality. These are plot, character, diction,\n[Bekker 1450a line 10]\nthought, spectacle, and song-making.\nThe means by which they imitate constitute two parts; the manner in which they imitate, one; and the objects they imitate, three; beyond these there is nothing.\n†Not a few of them†, one might say, have made use of these forms; for †every work has spectacle†, as well as character, plot, diction, song, and thought.\n[Bekker 1450a line 15]\nThe greatest of these is the arrangement of the incidents. For tragedy is an imitation not of human beings but of actions and of life\n[Bekker 1450a line 20]\n.\nThus the agents do not act in order to imitate character; rather, they include character for the sake of the actions. Consequently, the incidents and the plot are the end of tragedy, and the end is the greatest thing of all.\nMoreover, without action there could be no tragedy, but without character\n[Bekker 1450a line 25]\nthere could be.\nFor the tragedies of most recent poets are without character, and in general many poets are of this sort, just as among painters Zeuxis stands in relation to Polygnotus: Polygnotus is a fine painter of character, whereas the painting of Zeuxis has no character at all.\nAgain, if someone were to set down in succession speeches expressive of character and well made in diction\n[Bekker 1450a line 30]\nand thought, he would not accomplish what is the proper work of tragedy; a tragedy employing these elements less successfully, but possessing a plot and an arrangement of incidents, would accomplish it far better.\nBesides this, the chief means by which tragedy moves the soul are parts of the plot: reversals and\n[Bekker 1450a line 35]\nrecognitions.\nA further sign is that those who undertake to compose tragedies attain precision in diction and character before they are able to arrange the incidents, as was true of nearly all the earliest poets.\nPlot, then, is the first principle and, as it were, the soul of tragedy; character holds second place\n(for the same is true\n[Bekker 1450b]\n[Bekker 1450b line 1]\nin painting: if someone were to smear the most beautiful colors on a surface at random, he would not give as much pleasure as if he had drawn an image in outline).\nTragedy is an imitation of action, and chiefly for the sake of the action, of the agents.\nThird comes thought. This\n[Bekker 1450b line 5]\nis the ability to say what is inherent in the circumstances and what is appropriate, which in speeches is the function of political and rhetorical art.\nThe ancient poets made their characters speak politically; poets today make them speak rhetorically.\nCharacter is that which reveals choice, showing what sort of choice it is;\n[Bekker 1450b line 10]\ntherefore those speeches possess no character\n[Bekker 1450b line 10a]\nin which there is nothing at all that the speaker chooses or avoids.\nThought, however, is found in passages where speakers demonstrate that something is or is not the case, or make some general declaration.\nFourth †among the words† is diction. By “diction,” as has been said before, I mean expression through words, which has the same force both in metrical compositions and\n[Bekker 1450b line 15]\nin prose speeches.\nOf the remaining parts, song-making is the greatest of the embellishments.\nSpectacle, though capable of moving the soul, is the least artistic and the least proper to the poetic art; for the power of tragedy exists even without public performance and actors. Moreover, in bringing spectacles to completion,\n[Bekker 1450b line 20]\nthe art of the stage machinist has greater authority than that of the poets.\n\n### Chapter 7\n\nNow that these matters have been defined, let us next discuss what sort of arrangement the incidents ought to have, since this is both the first and the greatest element of tragedy.\nWe have established that tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete and whole\n[Bekker 1450b line 25]\nand possesses a certain magnitude; for something may be whole and yet possess no magnitude.\nA whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.\nA beginning is that which does not itself necessarily follow something else, but after which something else naturally comes to be or occurs.\nAn end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows something else,\n[Bekker 1450b line 30]\neither necessarily or for the most part, but after which there is nothing else.\nA middle is that which itself follows something else and has something else following it.\nWell-constructed plots, therefore, must neither begin at some chance point nor end at some chance point, but must employ the forms just described.\nFurthermore, since a beautiful thing—whether a living creature or any\n[Bekker 1450b line 35]\nwhole composed of parts—must not only have those parts arranged in order but must also possess a magnitude that is not arbitrary, for beauty consists in magnitude and order,\nneither could a very tiny creature be beautiful, since our perception of it becomes confused when it occurs in a span of time nearly imperceptible, nor could an enormously large one be beautiful, since\n[Bekker 1451a]\n[Bekker 1451a line 1]\nwe could not perceive it all at once, and its unity and wholeness would escape the spectators’ view—as, for example, if there were a creature ten thousand stadia long.\nThus, just as bodies and living creatures must possess magnitude, but a magnitude that can readily be taken in at a glance, so\n[Bekker 1451a line 5]\nplots must possess length, but a length that can readily be held in memory.\nThe limit of length in relation to dramatic competitions and the spectators’ perception does not belong to the poetic art; for if a hundred tragedies had to compete, they would compete by the water clock, †as they say was sometimes done on other occasions†.\nBut the limit determined by the very nature\n[Bekker 1451a line 10]\nof the action is this: provided that the sequence remains clear, the greater the length, the more beautiful the work will be in respect of magnitude. To give a simple definition, a magnitude is sufficient if, in the course of events occurring successively according to probability or necessity, a change comes about from misfortune to good fortune or from good fortune to misfortune.\n[Bekker 1451a line 15]\nThat is a sufficient limit of magnitude.\n\n### Chapter 8\n\nA plot is not unified, as some suppose, merely because it concerns a single person. For many—indeed, infinitely many—things happen to one person, and some of these possess no unity; likewise, one person performs many actions from which no single action results.\nTherefore all those poets seem\n[Bekker 1451a line 20]\nto have erred who composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, and other poems of that kind. They suppose that, because Heracles was one man, the plot concerning him must also be one.\nBut Homer, who excels in other respects as well, seems to have perceived this point correctly, whether through art or through natural talent. In composing the Odyssey,\n[Bekker 1451a line 25]\nhe did not include everything that happened to Odysseus—for example, his being wounded on Parnassus and his pretending to be mad at the mustering of the army—since, when either one of these events occurred, it was neither necessary nor probable that the other should occur. Instead, he constructed the Odyssey around a single action of the kind we have described, and likewise the Iliad.\n[Bekker 1451a line 30]\nTherefore, just as in the other imitative arts a single imitation is the imitation of a single object, so too the plot, since it is the imitation of an action, must imitate one action, and that a whole. Its incidents must be so arranged that if any one part is moved or removed, the whole is disturbed and displaced; for anything whose presence\n[Bekker 1451a line 35]\nor absence makes no perceptible difference is no part of the whole.\n\n### Chapter 9\n\nIt is also evident from what has been said that the poet’s task is not to tell what has happened, but what might happen—what is possible according to probability or necessity.\nFor the\n[Bekker 1451b]\n[Bekker 1451b line 1]\nhistorian and the poet differ not in speaking in verse or without verse—for the works of Herodotus could be put into verse, and they would be no less a history in verse than without verse—but in this: the one tells what has\n[Bekker 1451b line 5]\nhappened, the other what might happen.\nFor this reason poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars.\nBy a universal I mean what sort of things a certain sort of person will say or do according to probability or necessity, which is\n[Bekker 1451b line 10]\nwhat poetry aims at, though it assigns names to the persons; by a particular, what Alcibiades did or what befell him.\nIn comedy this has by now become evident: the poets construct the plot through probable events and then assign whatever names happen to occur to them, instead of composing, as the iambic poets do, about the particular\n[Bekker 1451b line 15]\nindividual.\nIn tragedy, however, they adhere to names that have actually existed. The reason is that what is possible is credible: we do not yet believe that things which have not happened are possible, whereas it is evident that things which have happened are possible, since they would not have happened if they had been impossible.\nNevertheless, even among tragedies, in some there is only one\n[Bekker 1451b line 20]\nor two familiar names, while the rest are invented; and in some there is none, as in Agathon’s Antheus; for in that play both the events and the names are alike invented, yet it delights no less.\nThus one should not insist absolutely on adhering to the traditional stories around which tragedies are\n[Bekker 1451b line 25]\nconstructed. Indeed, it is ridiculous to insist on this, since even familiar stories are familiar only to a few, yet nevertheless delight everyone.\nIt is clear from this, then, that the poet must be a maker of plots rather than of verses, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of imitation, and what he imitates is actions.\nAnd even if he happens\n[Bekker 1451b line 30]\nto compose about events that have actually occurred, he is no less a poet; for nothing prevents some actual events from being such as might probably have occurred, and it is in virtue of this that he is their poet.\nOf simple plots and actions, the episodic are the worst. I call a plot episodic when the\n[Bekker 1451b line 35]\nepisodes follow one another with neither probability nor necessity.\nSuch plots are made by bad poets through their own fault, and by good poets on account of the actors; for in composing pieces for competition and stretching the plot beyond its capacity,\n[Bekker 1452a]\n[Bekker 1452a line 1]\nthey are often compelled to distort the sequence of events.\nBut since imitation is not\n[Bekker 1452a line 2]\nonly of a complete action but also of fearful and pitiable events, and these occur most of all when they come about contrary to expectation yet because of one another,\nthe marvelous\n[Bekker 1452a line 5]\nwill be greater in this way than if the events arise spontaneously or by chance; for even among chance events, those appear most marvelous that seem to have happened as if by design. Thus the statue of Mitys at Argos killed the man responsible for Mitys’s death by falling upon him while he was looking at it; for such events seem\n[Bekker 1452a line 10]\nnot to occur at random.\nIt follows, therefore, that plots of this kind must be the finer ones.\n\n### Chapter 10\n\nSome plots are simple and others complex; for the actions of which plots are imitations are themselves, from the outset, of these kinds.\nBy a simple action I mean one which,\n[Bekker 1452a line 15]\nbeing continuous and unified as defined above, undergoes its change of fortune without reversal or recognition;\nand by a complex action, one in which the change of fortune is accompanied by recognition or reversal, or both.\nThese must arise from the very construction of the plot, so that they result from the preceding events\n[Bekker 1452a line 20]\neither by necessity or according to probability; for there is a great difference between one thing happening because of another and happening merely after it.\n\n### Chapter 11\n\nA reversal is a change by which the action turns into its opposite, as has been said; and this, as we maintain, must occur according to probability or necessity.\nFor example, in the\n[Bekker 1452a line 25]\nOedipus, the messenger comes intending to cheer Oedipus and free him from his fear concerning his mother, but by revealing who Oedipus was, he produces the opposite effect.\nAnd in the Lynceus, Lynceus is being led away to die, while Danaus follows to kill him; but as a result of what has happened, it comes about that Danaus dies and Lynceus is saved.\nRecognition,\n[Bekker 1452a line 30]\nas the name itself indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to enmity among persons destined for good or bad fortune.\nThe finest recognition is that which occurs simultaneously with reversal, as does the recognition in the Oedipus.\nThere are, of course, other kinds of recognition; for, as has been said, recognition can occur in relation to inanimate objects and things of\n[Bekker 1452a line 35]\nany sort, and it is possible to recognize whether someone has or has not done something.\nBut the recognition most integral to the plot and most integral to the action is the one described above; for such recognition and reversal will produce either pity\n[Bekker 1452b]\n[Bekker 1452b line 1]\nor fear—the kinds of actions of which tragedy is assumed to be an imitation—since both bad and good fortune will also result from such events.\nSince recognition is the recognition of certain persons, some recognitions involve only one person recognizing the other, when it is already clear who the other\n[Bekker 1452b line 5]\nis; but at other times both must recognize each other. Thus Iphigenia is recognized by Orestes through the sending of the letter, but another recognition is required for Orestes to be recognized by Iphigenia.\nTwo parts of the plot, then, are these: reversal\n[Bekker 1452b line 10]\nand recognition. A third is suffering. Reversal and recognition have now been discussed;\nsuffering is an action that causes destruction or pain, such as deaths in full view, agonies, woundings, and things of that kind.\n\n### Chapter 12\n\nThe parts of tragedy that must be employed as its constituent forms\n[Bekker 1452b line 15]\nwe have discussed before; but according to quantity and the separate sections into which it is divided, they are these: prologue, episode, exode, and choral portion,\nthe choral portion being divided into parode and stasimon.\nThese are common to all tragedies, while songs from the stage and dirges are peculiar to some.\nThe prologue is an entire part of a tragedy preceding the chorus’s\n[Bekker 1452b line 20]\nentrance-song;\nan episode is an entire part of a tragedy between complete choral songs;\nthe exode is an entire part of a tragedy after which there is no choral song;\nof the choral portion, the parode is the chorus’s first complete utterance;\nthe stasimon is a choral song without anapests or trochees;\nand the dirge is a lament shared by the chorus and those upon the\n[Bekker 1452b line 25]\nstage.\nThe parts of tragedy that must be employed as its constituent forms we have discussed before; but according to quantity and the separate sections into which it is divided, they are these.\n\n### Chapter 13\n\nWhat one should aim at and what one should avoid in constructing plots, and from what source the effect proper to tragedy will arise,\n[Bekker 1452b line 30]\nwould next, after what has now been said, have to be explained.\nSince, then, the structure of the finest tragedy must be not simple but complex, and must imitate events that arouse fear and pity—for this is peculiar to this kind of imitation—it is evident, first, that virtuous men should not be shown\n[Bekker 1452b line 35]\npassing from good fortune to bad; for this is neither fearful nor pitiable, but morally repugnant;\nnor should wicked men pass from bad fortune to good, for this is the most untragic outcome of all: it has none of the requisite qualities, since it neither appeals to human sympathy\n[Bekker 1453a]\n[Bekker 1453a line 1]\nnor arouses pity or fear;\nnor, again, should an utterly depraved man fall from good fortune into bad. Such a structure might appeal to human sympathy, but it would arouse neither pity nor fear; for pity concerns one who suffers undeservedly, while fear concerns one like ourselves—\n[Bekker 1453a line 5]\npity, then, concerns the undeserving sufferer, and fear one like ourselves—so that what happens will be neither pitiable nor fearful.\nThere remains, therefore, the man between these extremes. Such a man is one who is distinguished neither by virtue and justice nor one who falls into misfortune through vice and depravity, but through\n[Bekker 1453a line 10]\nsome error; and he is one of those who enjoy great reputation and prosperity, such as Oedipus and Thyestes and the illustrious men descended from houses like theirs.\nA well-constructed plot, therefore, must have a single rather than a double outcome, as some maintain, and the change must be not from misfortune to good fortune, but the reverse,\n[Bekker 1453a line 15]\nfrom good fortune to misfortune, not through depravity but through a great error on the part of one such as has been described, or of someone better rather than worse.\nWhat actually occurs is also evidence of this. At first, poets recounted whatever plots came to hand; but now the finest tragedies are composed around a few houses—for example,\n[Bekker 1453a line 20]\naround Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and all others to whom it has fallen either to suffer or to commit terrible deeds.\nThe finest tragedy according to the principles of the art, then, arises from this kind of structure.\nTherefore those who reproach Euripides because he does this\n[Bekker 1453a line 25]\nin his tragedies and because many of them end in misfortune are themselves in error. For this, as has been said, is correct;\nand the strongest evidence is that, on the stage and in dramatic competitions, such tragedies, if successfully executed, appear the most tragic; and Euripides, even if he does not manage other matters well, nevertheless\n[Bekker 1453a line 30]\nappears the most tragic of the poets.\nSecond best is the structure that some call the best: one that has a double structure, like the Odyssey, and ends with opposite outcomes for the better and the worse characters.\nIt is thought to be best because of the weakness of theatrical audiences; for poets follow the spectators and compose\n[Bekker 1453a line 35]\naccording to their wishes.\nBut this is not the pleasure proper to tragedy; it belongs rather to comedy. There, even those who are bitterest enemies in the plot—Orestes and Aegisthus, for example—depart at the end as friends, and no one dies at anyone’s hand.\n\n### Chapter 14\n\n[Bekker 1453b]\n[Bekker 1453b line 1]\nFear and pity may, then, arise from the spectacle, but they may also arise from the very structure of the events, which is the better way and the mark of a superior poet.\nFor the plot should be so constructed that, even without seeing the action, anyone who\n[Bekker 1453b line 5]\nhears the events as they occur will shudder and feel pity because of what happens—as one would on hearing the plot of Oedipus.\nTo produce this effect through spectacle is less artistic and requires lavish production.\nThose who use spectacle to produce not\n[Bekker 1453b line 9]\nthe fearful but only the monstrous\n[Bekker 1453b line 10]\nhave nothing in common with tragedy; for one should not seek every kind of pleasure from tragedy, but only the pleasure proper to it.\nSince the poet must produce through imitation the pleasure that comes from pity and fear, it is clear that this effect must be embodied in the events.\nLet us determine, then, what kinds of incidents appear terrible or pitiable among the\n[Bekker 1453b line 15]\nevents that occur. Such actions must necessarily take place between friends, between enemies, or between those who are neither.\nIf enemy acts against enemy, there is nothing pitiable either in the deed or in the intention, except in the suffering considered by itself;\nnor is there if the parties are neither friends nor enemies.\nBut when these\n[Bekker 1453b line 20]\nsufferings arise within bonds of affection—for example, when brother kills brother, son kills father, mother kills son, or son kills mother, or is about to do so, or commits some other such deed—these are the situations one must seek.\nThe traditional stories cannot be broken apart—I mean, for example, that Clytemnestra was killed by Orestes and Eriphyle by Alcmaeon—\n[Bekker 1453b line 25]\nbut the poet must exercise his own invention and make good use of what tradition has handed down. Let us explain more clearly what we mean by “good use.”\nThe deed may be done, as the ancient poets represented it, by characters who know and recognize what they are doing, just as Euripides made Medea kill her children;\nor they may\n[Bekker 1453b line 30]\ncommit the deed without knowing the horror of what they do, and afterward recognize the bond of affection, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus. There the deed lies outside the drama; within the tragedy itself, examples are Astydamas’ Alcmaeon and Telegonus in the Wounded Odysseus.\nThere is, besides these, a third possibility:\n[Bekker 1453b line 35]\nsomeone who is about to commit an irreparable deed in ignorance may recognize the victim before committing it.\nBeyond these there is no other possibility. The deed must either be done or not done, and the agent must either know or not know.\nOf these possibilities, to be about to act with full knowledge and then not act is the worst: it is morally repugnant and not tragic, since no suffering occurs. Therefore no one\n[Bekker 1454a]\n[Bekker 1454a line 1]\nconstructs a scene this way, except rarely—as, in Antigone, Haemon does with Creon.\nTo perform the deed knowingly is second worst.\nBetter is to perform it in ignorance and recognize the victim afterward; for then there is no moral repugnance, and the recognition is startling.\nBest of all\n[Bekker 1454a line 5]\nis the last possibility. I mean, for example, that in Cresphontes Merope is about to kill her son but does not kill him, recognizing him instead; in Iphigenia the sister is about to kill her brother; and in Helle the son, when about to surrender his mother, recognizes her.\nThis is why, as was said long ago, tragedies concern only a few\n[Bekker 1454a line 10]\nfamilies. For poets, in their search, discovered how to produce this effect in their plots not by art but by chance; they are therefore compelled to resort to those houses in which such sufferings occurred.\nEnough, then, has been said about the structure of events and what sort of plots\n[Bekker 1454a line 15]\nthere ought to be.\n\n### Chapter 15\n\nWith regard to character, there are four things one should aim at. The first and foremost is that the characters be good.\nA character will be present if, as has been said, speech or action reveals a certain moral choice, whatever it may be; and the character will be good if the choice\n[Bekker 1454a line 20]\nis good.\nGoodness is possible in every class: even a woman may be good, and so may a slave, although perhaps the former is inferior and the latter wholly base.\nThe second aim is propriety. A character may be brave, but it is not fitting for a woman to be brave or formidable in the same way as a man.\nThe third is likeness. This is different\n[Bekker 1454a line 25]\nfrom making the character good and fitting, as described above.\nThe fourth is consistency. Even if the person who provides the subject for the imitation is inconsistent, and such a character is assumed, the character must nevertheless be consistently inconsistent.\nAn example of needless baseness of character is Menelaus in Orestes;\nof\n[Bekker 1454a line 30]\nthe unbecoming and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in Scylla and the speech of Melanippe;\nand of inconsistency, Iphigenia at Aulis, for the suppliant Iphigenia bears no resemblance to the woman she becomes afterward.\nIn character, just as in the structure of events, one must always seek either necessity or probability,\n[Bekker 1454a line 35]\nso that it is necessary or probable for a person of a certain kind to say or do things of a certain kind, and necessary or probable that this event should follow that one.\nIt is therefore clear that the resolutions of plots must also arise from the\n[Bekker 1454b]\n[Bekker 1454b line 1]\nplot itself, and not from a machine, as in Medea and in the episode of the departure by ship in the Iliad.\nA machine should be used for matters outside the drama: either events that occurred before it and that no human being could know, or later events that\n[Bekker 1454b line 5]\nrequire foretelling and announcement; for we grant to the gods the power to see all things.\nNothing irrational should occur within the events; but if it does, it must lie outside the tragedy, as does the irrational element in Sophocles’ Oedipus.\nSince tragedy is an imitation of people better than ourselves, poets should imitate good\n[Bekker 1454b line 10]\nportrait painters; for these artists, while rendering the distinctive form and making their subjects recognizable, paint them more beautiful than they are. So too the poet, when imitating people who are irascible, easygoing, or possess other such traits of character, should make them, while remaining such people, noble—†an example of harshness is Achilles, whom Homer too made good†.\n[Bekker 1454b line 15]\nThese principles, then, must be preserved, and in addition those effects that depart from the perceptions necessarily attendant upon the poetic art; for errors can often be made in these matters also. Enough has been said about them in the published discussions.\n\n### Chapter 16\n\nWhat recognition is has been stated earlier. As for the kinds\n[Bekker 1454b line 20]\nof recognition, the first is the least artistic and the one poets use most often from lack of invention: recognition through signs.\nSome of these are congenital, such as the lance-mark borne by the Earthborn,\nor stars like those Carcinus uses in Thyestes; others are acquired, and of these some are on the body, such as scars, while others are external, such as\n[Bekker 1454b line 25]\nnecklaces and, in Tyro, the recognition by means of the cradle.\nThese signs too may be used either better or worse. Odysseus, for example, was recognized by his scar in one way by his nurse and in another by the swineherds;\nfor recognitions introduced merely to establish identity are less artistic, as are all others of that kind, while those arising from a reversal, as\n[Bekker 1454b line 30]\nin the Washing, are better.\nSecond are recognitions contrived by the poet, and therefore inartistic. For example, in Iphigenia Orestes reveals that he is Orestes: she is recognized through the letter, but he himself says what the poet wishes him to say rather than what\n[Bekker 1454b line 35]\nthe plot requires.\nThis therefore comes close to the error just mentioned, since he could have brought some tokens with him. Another example is the voice of the shuttle in Sophocles’ Tereus.\nThe third kind is recognition through memory, when the sight\n[Bekker 1455a]\n[Bekker 1455a line 1]\nof something awakens awareness, as in Dicaeogenes’ Cyprians, where the man wept upon seeing the painting; and in the tale told to Alcinous, where Odysseus, hearing the lyre-player and remembering, shed tears, and thus they were recognized.\nThe fourth kind is recognition through inference, as in the Libation Bearers:\n[Bekker 1455a line 5]\nsomeone resembling me has arrived; no one resembles me except Orestes; therefore Orestes has arrived. There is also the recognition concerning Iphigenia proposed by Polyidus the sophist; for he said it was natural that Orestes should infer that, since his sister had been sacrificed, it was now his own fate to be sacrificed. And in Theodectes’ Tydeus, the inference is that, having come in hopes of finding his son, he himself\n[Bekker 1455a line 10]\nperishes. Another example occurs in the Daughters of Phineus: when they saw the place, they inferred their fate, that they were destined to die there, for there too they had been exposed as infants.\nThere is also a composite recognition arising from false inference on the audience’s part, as in Odysseus the\n[Bekker 1455a line 14]\nFalse Messenger. For the ability to string the bow, when no one else\n[Bekker 1455a line 14a]\ncould, is a contrivance and an assumption made by the poet,\n[Bekker 1455a line 14b]\neven if Odysseus said he would recognize the bow, which he had not\n[Bekker 1455a line 15]\nseen; but to make the recognition occur through this, on the supposition that he would be recognized by that means, is false inference.\nThe best recognition of all is that which arises from the events themselves, when the startling disclosure comes about through probable incidents, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus and in Iphigenia; for it is probable that she would wish to entrust a letter. Such recognitions\n[Bekker 1455a line 20]\nalone dispense with contrived signs and necklaces.\nSecond best are those that arise from inference.\n\n### Chapter 17\n\nIn constructing plots and working them out in language, one should set them before one’s eyes as vividly as possible; for by seeing them thus with the greatest clarity, as though present at the very\n[Bekker 1455a line 25]\nevents themselves, one would discover what is fitting and be least likely to overlook contradictions.\nEvidence of this is the fault found with Carcinus. His Amphiaraus was returning from the temple—a detail that escaped the poet because he did not visualize the scene—but on the stage the play failed when the spectators took offense at it.\nSo far as possible, one should also work out the action through one’s own gestures;\n[Bekker 1455a line 30]\nfor, given the same natural capacities, those who are themselves in the grip of emotion are the most convincing: the man who is distressed conveys distress, and the man who is angry conveys anger, with the greatest truth.\nHence poetry belongs to the naturally gifted or to the mad; for the former are readily adaptable, while the latter are transported out of themselves.\nAs for stories, whether inherited or invented, the poet should first\n[Bekker 1455b]\n[Bekker 1455b line 1]\nset them out for himself in general outline, and only then introduce episodes and expand them.\nWhat I mean by viewing the general outline may be illustrated by the Iphigenia: a certain maiden was sacrificed and vanished unobserved by those who had sacrificed her; she was established in another country, where\n[Bekker 1455b line 5]\nit was the custom to sacrifice strangers to the goddess, and she held this priesthood. Some time later it happened that the priestess’s brother came there—the fact that the god’s oracle commanded him to go there, and the purpose for which it did so, lie outside the plot. But when he arrived, was seized, and was about to be sacrificed, he revealed his identity, whether in the manner\n[Bekker 1455b line 10]\nof Euripides or as Polyidus devised it, saying, as probability required, that it was apparently fated not only that his sister should be sacrificed but that he too should be; and from this comes his deliverance.\nAfter this, once the characters have been given names, the poet should introduce the episodes;\nbut he must see that the episodes are appropriate, as in the case of Orestes, where there are the madness through which he was captured and the\n[Bekker 1455b line 15]\ndeliverance through purification.\nIn dramas, then, the episodes are brief, whereas epic is lengthened by them.\nFor the story of the Odyssey is not long: a man is abroad for many years, kept under watch by Poseidon and left entirely alone; moreover, affairs at home are in such a state that his\n[Bekker 1455b line 20]\nproperty is being consumed by suitors and his son is being plotted against. He himself arrives after being storm-tossed, reveals his identity to certain persons, and attacks: he is saved, and destroys his enemies.\nThis, then, is the essential story; all the rest consists of episodes.\n\n### Chapter 18\n\nEvery tragedy consists partly of complication and partly of resolution.\n[Bekker 1455b line 25]\nThe events outside the play, and often some of those within it, form the complication; the remainder is the resolution.\nBy complication I mean everything from the beginning up to and including the last point from which the action passes into good fortune or bad fortune; by resolution, everything from the beginning of that change to the end.\nThus, in Theodectes’ Lynceus,\n[Bekker 1455b line 30]\nthe complication comprises the events already accomplished, the seizure of the child, and then the seizure of the parents themselves; the resolution extends from the accusation of murder to the end.\nThere are four kinds of tragedy—for the parts were also said to be that many:\nthe complex, which consists wholly of reversal and recognition;\nthe tragedy of suffering, such as the plays about\n[Bekker 1456a]\n[Bekker 1456a line 1]\nAjax and Ixion;\nthe tragedy of character, such as the Women of Phthia and Peleus;\nand the fourth, †the spectacular†, such as the Phorcides, Prometheus, and all plays set in Hades.\nOne should therefore strive above all to include every kind, but if that is impossible, then the most important and the greatest number—especially\n[Bekker 1456a line 5]\nbecause of the way poets are now maliciously criticized. Since there have been good poets in each individual kind, the critics expect a single poet to surpass each of them in his particular excellence.\nNothing defines one tragedy as different from or the same as another so properly as the plot; that is, tragedies are the same when their complication and resolution are the same.\nMany poets construct the complication well\n[Bekker 1456a line 10]\nbut resolve it badly;\nyet both must always be brought off with mastery.\nOne must remember what has often been said and not make a tragedy into an epic structure—by “epic” I mean one containing many stories—as one would do, for example, by taking the whole plot of the Iliad.\nIn epic, because of its length, the parts assume their proper magnitude; but\n[Bekker 1456a line 15]\nin dramas the result falls far short of expectation.\nThe proof is that all who have dramatized the entire sack of Troy rather than separate portions of it, as Euripides did, or the whole story of Niobe rather than treating it as Aeschylus did, either fail outright or fare badly in the competition; indeed, Agathon failed for this reason alone.\nBut in reversals and in simple actions, poets attain the effect they desire with marvelous skill;\n[Bekker 1456a line 20]\nfor this is both tragic and satisfying to human feeling.\nThis occurs when a clever but wicked man is deceived, like Sisyphus, or when a brave but unjust man is defeated.\nAnd this is also probable, as Agathon says; for it is probable that many things should happen\n[Bekker 1456a line 25]\ncontrary to probability.\nThe chorus, too, must be regarded as one of the actors; it must be a part of the whole and share in the action, not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles.\nIn the other poets, the songs belong no more to the plot at hand than to another tragedy; hence their choruses sing interludes, Agathon having been the first\n[Bekker 1456a line 30]\nto introduce this practice. Yet what difference is there between singing interludes and fitting a speech from one play into another, or even an entire episode?\n\n### Chapter 19\n\nThe other kinds have now been discussed; it remains to speak of diction and thought.\nWhat concerns thought may\n[Bekker 1456a line 35]\nbe left to the treatises on rhetoric, since it belongs more properly to that field of inquiry.\nThought includes everything that must be produced through speech.\nIts parts are proof and refutation, the arousing of emotions—such as\n[Bekker 1456b]\n[Bekker 1456b line 1]\npity, fear, anger, and all similar emotions—and, further, the effects of magnitude and smallness.\nIt is clear that in the events themselves one must employ the same forms of thought whenever it is necessary to produce effects of pity, terror, magnitude, or probability.\nThere is, however, this\n[Bekker 1456b line 5]\ndifference: the events must appear as they are without explicit exposition, whereas the effects conveyed in speech must be produced by the speaker and arise through the speech. For what would be the speaker’s function if the required effect were apparent in itself and did not result from the speech?\nOf matters concerning diction, one field of inquiry consists of the forms of utterance.\n[Bekker 1456b line 10]\nKnowledge of these belongs to the art of acting and to whoever possesses authoritative mastery of that art—for example, what is a command, a prayer, a narration, a threat, a question, an answer, and anything else of this kind.\nFor no criticism worthy\n[Bekker 1456b line 15]\nof serious attention can be brought against the poetic art on the grounds of knowing or not knowing these things. For who could suppose there to be the error that Protagoras censures when he says that the poet, thinking he is uttering a prayer, issues a command in the words, “Sing, goddess, of the wrath”?\nFor to bid someone do or not do something, he says, is a command.\nLet this matter therefore be set aside, since it belongs to another art and not to poetics.\n\n### Chapter 20\n\n[Bekker 1456b line 20]\nThe parts of diction as a whole are these: letter, syllable, conjunction, noun, verb, article, inflection, and phrase.\nA letter is an indivisible sound—not every such sound, but one from which a compound sound naturally arises; for animals also make indivisible sounds, none of which I call a letter.\nThe parts of a letter\n[Bekker 1456b line 25]\nare vowel, semivowel, and mute. A vowel is that which has an audible sound without any contact of the vocal organs; a semivowel is that which has an audible sound with such contact, as S and R; and a mute is that which, with such contact, has no sound by itself, but becomes audible in combination\n[Bekker 1456b line 30]\nwith letters that have some sound, as G and D.\nThese differ according to the shapes and positions of the mouth, aspiration and absence of aspiration, length and shortness, and further according to acute, grave, and intermediate pitch; the detailed study of these matters belongs to metrics.\nA syllable\n[Bekker 1456b line 35]\nis a composite sound without meaning, formed from a mute and a letter having sound; for GR without A is †a syllable, and† so is GR with A, as in GRA. But the study of the differences among these also belongs to metrics.\nA conjunction is a sound without meaning which neither\n[Bekker 1457a]\n[Bekker 1457a line 1]\nprevents nor produces a single significant sound from several sounds, and which naturally stands either at the ends or in the middle, but which it is not fitting to place by itself at the beginning of a phrase—for example, men, ētoi, and de; or it is a sound without meaning which, from several sounds\n[Bekker 1457a line 5]\nthat each have meaning, naturally produces a single significant sound.\nAn article is a sound without meaning that marks the beginning, end, or division of a phrase, such as amphi, peri, and the others; or it is a sound without meaning which neither prevents nor produces a single significant sound from several sounds, and which naturally stands\n[Bekker 1457a line 10]\nboth at the ends and in the middle.\nA noun is a composite significant sound without reference to time, no part of which has meaning by itself; for in compound nouns we do not use a part as though it also had meaning in itself: for example, in Theodorus, dorus has no meaning.\nA verb is a composite significant sound with reference\n[Bekker 1457a line 15]\nto time, no part of which has meaning by itself, just as with nouns. For “man” or “white” does not signify when, whereas “walks” or “has walked” signifies in addition, respectively, present time and past time.\nAn inflection is a form of a noun or verb: one kind signifies “of this” or “to this”\n[Bekker 1457a line 20]\nand the like; another signifies one or many, as “men” or “man”; another follows the forms of delivery, such as question or command—for “Did he walk?” and “Walk!” are inflections of a verb according to these forms.\nA phrase is a composite significant sound, some parts of which signify something by themselves\n(for not every phrase is composed of verbs and nouns, as, for example, the\n[Bekker 1457a line 25]\ndefinition of man is not; a phrase may exist without verbs, though it will always have some part that signifies something), as “Cleon” in “Cleon walks.”\nA phrase is one in two ways: either because it signifies one thing, or because it is composed of several parts joined together. Thus the Iliad is\n[Bekker 1457a line 30]\none by conjunction, while the definition of man is one by signifying one thing.\n\n### Chapter 21\n\nThe kinds of noun are these: one is simple—and by simple I mean one not composed of significant elements, such as “earth”—and another is compound.\nOf the latter, one kind is composed of a significant and an insignificant element, though the latter is not significant within the\n[Bekker 1457a line 33a]\nnoun; another is composed of significant elements.\nA noun may also be triple, quadruple, or\n[Bekker 1457a line 35]\nmultiple, as are many Massaliot names,\n[Bekker 1457b]\n[Bekker 1457b line 1]\nsuch as Hermocaicoxanthus...\nEvery noun is either ordinary, a foreign word, a metaphor, an ornament, a coined word, a lengthened word, a curtailed word, or an altered word.\nBy ordinary I mean the word used by each people,\nand by foreign the word used by others; hence it is clear that the same word can be both\n[Bekker 1457b line 5]\nforeign and ordinary, though not for the same people: “sigynon” is ordinary among the Cypriots but foreign to us.\nMetaphor is the application of an alien noun, either from genus to species, from species to genus, from species to species, or by analogy.\nBy transfer from genus to\n[Bekker 1457b line 10]\nspecies I mean, for example, “Here stands my ship”; for lying at anchor is a kind of standing.\nFrom species to genus: “Truly ten thousand noble deeds has Odysseus wrought”; for ten thousand is many, and the poet has used it here in place of “many.”\nFrom species to species, for example, “drawing off his life with bronze” and “cutting with the long-edged bronze”; here\n[Bekker 1457b line 15]\nhe has called drawing off “cutting,” and cutting “drawing off,” since both are forms of taking something away.\nBy analogy I mean when the second stands to the first as the fourth stands to the third; one may then speak of the fourth instead of the second, or of the second instead of the fourth.\nAnd sometimes they add to the substituted term that to which\n[Bekker 1457b line 20]\nthe term replaced is related. I mean, for example, that the cup stands to Dionysus as the shield stands to Ares; one may therefore call the cup “the shield of Dionysus” and the shield “the cup of Ares.”\nOr old age stands to life as evening stands to day; one may therefore call evening “the old age of day,” or, as\n[Bekker 1457b line 25]\nEmpedocles does, call old age “the evening of life” or “the sunset of life.”\nIn some analogies one of the corresponding terms has no established name, yet the expression may nevertheless be formed in the same way. For example, casting forth seed is called “sowing,” while the sun’s casting forth its flame has no name; but this action stands to the sun as sowing stands to seed, and hence the phrase “sowing the god-created\n[Bekker 1457b line 30]\nflame.”\nThis kind of metaphor may also be used in another way: after applying the alien term, one may deny one of the attributes proper to it;\nfor example, one might call the shield not “the cup of Ares” but “the wineless cup”...\nA coined word is one not used at all by any people but established by the poet himself; for some words appear to be of this sort, such as\n[Bekker 1457b line 35]\n“sprouters” for horns and “supplicator” for priest.\nA lengthened\n[Bekker 1458a]\n[Bekker 1458a line 1]\nor curtailed word is produced in the former case when a vowel longer than the proper one is used or a syllable is inserted, and in the latter when some part of the word is removed.\nExamples of lengthening are polēos for poleōs and Pēlēïadeō for Pēleidou; examples of curtailment are\n[Bekker 1458a line 5]\nkri, dō, and “the sight of both becomes one.”\nAn altered word is produced when part of the ordinary word is retained and part newly made, as in “on the rightward breast” instead of “on the right breast.”\nOf nouns themselves, some are masculine, some feminine, and some intermediate.\nMasculine nouns are those ending in N, R, and S,\n[Bekker 1458a line 10]\nand in letters compounded with S—of which there are two, PS and X. Feminine nouns are those ending, among the vowels, in those that are always long,\nsuch as Ē and Ō, and, among vowels capable of being lengthened, in A.\nThus the number of endings in which masculine and feminine nouns terminate is equal; for PS and X are compound letters.\nNo noun ends in a mute consonant, nor in\n[Bekker 1458a line 15]\na short vowel.\nOnly three end in I: meli, kommi, peperi. Five end in U. Intermediate nouns end in these vowels and in N and S.\n\n### Chapter 22\n\nThe excellence of diction is to be clear without being commonplace.\nDiction composed of ordinary nouns is indeed the clearest, but\n[Bekker 1458a line 20]\nit is commonplace; examples are the poetry of Cleophon and that of Sthenelus.\nDiction is elevated and departs from the everyday when it employs unfamiliar forms; by unfamiliar I mean the foreign word, metaphor, lengthening, and everything that departs from the ordinary.\nBut if anyone makes all his diction of this sort, the result will be either a riddle or\n[Bekker 1458a line 25]\na barbarism: if composed of metaphors, a riddle; if of foreign words, a barbarism.\nFor the essence of a riddle is to join actual things together while saying what is impossible. This cannot be done by combining other kinds of nouns, but it can be done by metaphor, as in “I saw a man welding bronze with fire\n[Bekker 1458a line 30]\nupon a man,” and similar expressions.\nDiction composed of foreign words is a barbarism.\nThese elements must therefore be blended in some fashion. The foreign word, metaphor, ornament, and the other forms already mentioned\n[Bekker 1458a line 34]\nwill keep the diction from being everyday and commonplace, while the ordinary word will secure its clarity.\nNo small contribution\n[Bekker 1458b]\n[Bekker 1458b line 1]\nto making diction clear without making it everyday comes from the lengthenings, curtailments, and alterations of nouns. Because such a form differs from the ordinary and departs from customary usage, it will keep the diction from being everyday; because it\n[Bekker 1458b line 5]\nshares in customary usage, it will remain clear.\nThus those who censure this manner of speech and ridicule the poet are wrong, as was the elder Euclides, who said that it was easy to compose verse if one were allowed to lengthen words as much as one pleased, and who made iambic verses in the diction itself: “I saw Epichares\n[Bekker 1458b line 10]\nwalking Marathonward,” and “not † having grown old † on his hellebore.”\nTo make one’s use of this method conspicuous is, of course, ridiculous; but due measure is the common rule for every part of diction.\nFor one would produce the same effect by using metaphors, foreign words, and the other forms improperly and deliberately\n[Bekker 1458b line 15]\nfor comic effect.\nHow great a difference appropriate usage makes may be observed in epic verse by substituting ordinary nouns within the meter.\nAnd with the foreign word, metaphors, and the other forms as well, anyone who replaces them with ordinary nouns will see that what we say is true. For example, Aeschylus and Euripides composed the same\n[Bekker 1458b line 20]\niambic line, but Euripides changed only a single noun, substituting a foreign word for the customary ordinary one; the one line appears noble, the other paltry. Aeschylus wrote in his Philoctetes, “the ulcer that eats the flesh of my foot,”\nwhile Euripides replaced “eats” with “feasts upon.” And in\n[Bekker 1458b line 25]\n“Now, being small and worthless and unseemly,”\nif someone were to replace the words with ordinary ones and say, “Now, being little and weak and ugly”;\nand for “setting down an unseemly stool and a meager table,”\n[Bekker 1458b line 30]\n“setting down a wretched stool and a little table”;\nand for “the shores roar,” “the shores cry out.”\nAriphrades also ridiculed the tragedians because they used expressions that no one would employ in conversation, such as “from the halls away” instead of “away from the halls,” and “of thee,” and “I him,” and\n[Bekker 1459a]\n[Bekker 1459a line 1]\n“Achilles about” instead of “about Achilles,” and all other expressions of that kind.\nBecause they are not among the ordinary forms, all such expressions keep diction from being everyday; but he did not understand this.\nIt is a great thing to use each of the forms already mentioned\n[Bekker 1459a line 5]\nappropriately, compound nouns and foreign words included, but by far the greatest thing is to be master of metaphor.\nThis alone cannot be learned from another and is a sign of natural genius; for to make good metaphors is to perceive likeness.\nAmong nouns, compound forms are especially suited to dithyrambs,\n[Bekker 1459a line 10]\nforeign words to heroic verse, and metaphors to iambic verse.\nIn heroic verse all the forms mentioned are useful; but because iambic verse imitates speech as closely as possible, the nouns appropriate to it are those one might also use in prose: the ordinary noun, metaphor, and ornament.\n[Bekker 1459a line 15]\nLet what has been said suffice, then, concerning tragedy and imitation through action.\n\n### Chapter 23\n\nAs for narrative imitation in meter, it is clear that the plots, as in tragedies, must be constructed dramatically and centered upon a single action, whole and complete,\n[Bekker 1459a line 20]\nhaving a beginning, middle, and end, so that, like a single whole living creature, it may produce its proper pleasure.\nTheir structures must not resemble histories, in which one must present not a single action but a single period of time: everything that happened during it to one person or to several, each event bearing only a chance relation to the others.\nFor just\n[Bekker 1459a line 25]\nas the sea battle at Salamis and the battle of the Carthaginians in Sicily occurred at the same time without contributing to the same end, so too in successive periods one event sometimes follows another without any single end resulting from them.\nYet nearly all poets\n[Bekker 1459a line 30]\ndo this.\nTherefore, as we have already said, in this respect also Homer may appear divinely inspired beside the others, because he did not attempt to make the whole war his subject, though it had a beginning and an end. The plot would have been excessively large and not readily comprehensible at a single view; or, if he had moderated its length, it would have been intricate through its variety.\n[Bekker 1459a line 35]\nAs it is, he took one part and used many of the remaining events as episodes, such as the Catalogue of Ships and other episodes with which he diversifies the poem.\nThe other poets, however, compose about one man,\n[Bekker 1459b]\n[Bekker 1459b line 1]\none period, and one action with many parts, as did the authors of the Cypria and the Little Iliad.\nConsequently, from the Iliad and the Odyssey only one tragedy, or at most two, can be made from each, while many can be made from the Cypria and from the Little\n[Bekker 1459b line 5]\nIliad.\n\n### Chapter 24\n\nFurthermore, epic poetry must have the same kinds as tragedy: it must be either simple or complex, ethical or\n[Bekker 1459b line 10]\npathetic.\nIts parts also are the same, apart from song and spectacle; for it requires reversals, recognitions, and scenes of suffering, and its thought and diction must be excellent.\nHomer employed all these, both first and adequately. Each of his poems is so constituted: the Iliad is simple\n[Bekker 1459b line 15]\nand pathetic, while the Odyssey is complex—for recognition runs throughout it—and ethical; and besides these merits, he has surpassed everyone in diction and thought.\nEpic differs from tragedy, however, in the length of its structure and in its meter.\nFor its length, the limit already stated is sufficient: one must be able to take in the beginning\n[Bekker 1459b line 20]\nand the end together. This would be possible if the structures were shorter than those of the ancient poets but extended to the length of the number of tragedies presented at a single hearing.\nEpic poetry possesses a considerable means peculiar to itself for enlarging its scope. In tragedy it is impossible to imitate many parts of the action occurring\n[Bekker 1459b line 25]\nsimultaneously, but only the part enacted upon the stage by the actors; in epic poetry, because it is narrative, many parts may be represented as being accomplished at the same time, and if they are relevant, they increase the poem’s bulk.\nThus epic has this advantage for attaining grandeur, varying the experience of the\n[Bekker 1459b line 30]\nhearer, and enriching the poem with dissimilar episodes; for sameness, by quickly producing satiety, causes tragedies to fail.\nExperience has shown the heroic meter to be appropriate. For if anyone were to compose narrative imitation in some other meter, or in several meters, the result would plainly be unsuitable.\nThe heroic is the most stately and\n[Bekker 1459b line 35]\nweighty of meters; hence it especially admits foreign words and metaphors, since narrative imitation also surpasses the others in elevation.\nThe iambic and the tetrameter,\n[Bekker 1460a]\n[Bekker 1460a line 1]\nby contrast, are meters of movement, the one suited to dancing and the other to action.\nIt would be still more incongruous if someone mixed them, as Chaeremon did.\nTherefore no one has composed a long structure in any meter other than the heroic; rather, as we have said, nature herself teaches the poet to choose what is appropriate to it.\n[Bekker 1460a line 5]\nHomer deserves praise for many other things, and especially because he alone among poets does not fail to understand what the poet himself ought to do.\nThe poet himself should speak as little as possible, since it is not by speaking in his own person that he is an imitator. Other poets remain personally before us throughout and imitate only a few things, and those seldom; but Homer, after a brief\n[Bekker 1460a line 10]\npreamble, immediately introduces a man, a woman, or some other character—and never one without character, but always one possessing it.\nThe marvelous should certainly be introduced into tragedies, but the irrational, which is the chief source of the marvelous, is more admissible in\n[Bekker 1460a line 13]\nepic poetry because the agent is not before our eyes.\nFor the circumstances surrounding\n[Bekker 1460a line 15]\nthe pursuit of Hector would appear ridiculous onstage: the others standing still and not joining the pursuit, while Achilles signals them back; but in epic verse the absurdity passes unnoticed.\nAnd the marvelous is pleasurable. The proof is that everyone adds something when telling a story, in the belief that he is pleasing his audience.\nHomer above all has taught the other poets how falsehoods should be told.\n[Bekker 1460a line 20]\nThe method is false inference. People suppose that whenever, if one thing exists or occurs, another exists or occurs, then if the latter exists, the former must also exist or occur; but this is false. Therefore, if the first thing is false, but if it existed some other thing would necessarily exist or occur, the poet should add that other thing. Because we know the latter to be true,\n[Bekker 1460a line 25]\nour mind falsely infers that the first is true as well. An example is the episode of the Washing.\nOne should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.\nPlots should not be constructed from irrational parts; ideally, they should contain nothing irrational, but failing that, the irrationality should lie outside the plot, as with Oedipus’ ignorance of how Laius died, and not within the drama, as in the Electra with those who report the Pythian games, or in the Mysians with the speechless man who comes from Tegea to Mysia.\n[Bekker 1460a line 30]\nThus it is ridiculous to say that otherwise the plot would be destroyed; for such plots should not be constructed in the first place. † But if the poet does introduce such a thing, and it appears that it could occur more reasonably, even an absurdity †\nFor it would become\n[Bekker 1460a line 35]\nclear that even the irrational circumstances in the Odyssey surrounding Odysseus’ being put ashore would not have been tolerable\n[Bekker 1460b]\n[Bekker 1460b line 1]\nif an inferior poet had composed them; but as it is, the poet uses his other excellences to conceal the absurdity by making it pleasurable.\nDiction should be elaborated especially in the inactive passages, where neither character nor thought is present; for excessively brilliant\n[Bekker 1460b line 5]\ndiction in turn obscures both character and thought.\n\n### Chapter 25\n\nConcerning problems and their solutions—the number and nature of the forms from which they arise—the matter may become clear if considered as follows.\nSince the poet is an imitator, like a painter or any other maker of images, he must always imitate one of three\n[Bekker 1460b line 10]\nkinds of things: either things as they were or are, or things as people say and believe them to be, or things as they ought to be.\nThese things are conveyed in language, which includes rare words, metaphors, and many modifications of expression;\nfor we allow poets these liberties. Besides this, correctness is not the same in politics and in poetry, nor in any other\n[Bekker 1460b line 15]\nart and in poetry.\nWithin poetry itself, error is of two kinds: one intrinsic, the other incidental.\nFor if the poet chose to imitate... but failed through incapacity, the error belongs to poetry itself; but if his original conception was incorrect—as when he represents a horse advancing both right legs together—or if the error concerns some particular art,\n[Bekker 1460b line 20]\nsuch as medicine or any other art whatsoever, it does not belong to poetry in itself.\nAccordingly, objections raised in problems must be examined and answered from these considerations. First, those that concern the art itself: the poet has represented impossibilities and therefore has erred.\nBut the representation is correct if it attains the end of the art itself—for the\n[Bekker 1460b line 25]\nend has been stated—if in this way it makes either that passage or some other passage more striking. An example is the pursuit of Hector.\nIf, however, the end could have been attained either better or no less well in accordance with the relevant art, the error is not justified; for, if possible, there should be no error at all in any respect.\nAgain, to which class does the\n[Bekker 1460b line 30]\nerror belong: errors intrinsic to the art, or errors incidental to something else? For it is a lesser error not to know that a female deer has no antlers than to portray one inartistically.\nBesides, if the objection is that the representation is not true, perhaps it is nevertheless as it ought to be. Thus Sophocles said that he himself portrayed people as they ought to be, whereas Euripides portrayed them as they are; this is\n[Bekker 1460b line 35]\nthe answer to make.\nBut if the representation accords with neither, the answer may be that this is what people say, as in stories about the gods;\nfor perhaps it is neither better to speak of them in this way nor true, but the case may be\n[Bekker 1461a]\n[Bekker 1461a line 1]\nas Xenophanes held; nevertheless, this is what people say.\nOther things may perhaps not be better, but were in fact so, as in the passage about the weapons: “Their spears stood upright upon their butt-spikes”; for that was then the custom, as it still is among the Illyrians.\nAs to whether something has been well or badly\n[Bekker 1461a line 5]\nsaid or done by someone, one must consider not only the deed or statement itself and whether it is noble or base, but also the person who acts or speaks, the person to whom, the time, the means, and the purpose—for example, whether it was done to bring about a greater good or to avert a greater evil.\nProblems concerning\n[Bekker 1461a line 10]\nexpression must be resolved by attending to the language. Thus the rare word in “first the mules”: perhaps he does not mean the mules but the sentinels. And of Dolon, “who indeed was ill-favored in appearance,” the meaning is not that his body was misshapen, but that his face was ugly, for the Cretans use “fair-formed” to mean “fair-faced.” So too,\n[Bekker 1461a line 15]\n“mix it stronger” does not mean “mix it unmixed,” as though for drunkards, but “mix it more quickly.”\nAnother expression is metaphorical, as in “All the gods and mortal men slept through the night”; yet at the same time he says, “Whenever he looked toward the Trojan plain, he marveled at the din of flutes and pipes.” Here “all” is used metaphorically in place of “many,”\n[Bekker 1461a line 20]\nfor “all” is a kind of multitude. And “alone without a share” is metaphorical, for what is best known is called the only one.\nOther problems are resolved by accentuation, as Hippias of Thasos resolved “We grant him the glory of attaining” and “part of which does not decay in rain.”\nOthers are resolved by division, as in Empedocles: “At once things mortal grew that formerly had learned\n[Bekker 1461a line 25]\nto be immortal, and things unmixed that formerly were mixed.”\nOthers arise from ambiguity: “More of the night has passed,” for “more” is ambiguous.\nOthers are resolved by customary usage. People call mixed wine “wine,” and hence the phrase “a greave of newly wrought tin”; and they call those who work iron “bronzesmiths,” and hence Ganymede is said\n[Bekker 1461a line 30]\nto pour wine for Zeus, though the gods do not drink wine. This last expression, however, may also be metaphorical.\nWhenever a word seems to signify something contradictory, one must also consider how many meanings it may bear in the passage in question. Thus, in “there the bronze spear was checked,” one must ask in how many ways “was checked there” can be understood—\nin this way or that, according to what\n[Bekker 1461a line 35]\none would most naturally suppose, rather than in the directly contrary sense.\nOr the matter may be as\n[Bekker 1461b]\n[Bekker 1461b line 1]\nGlaucon says: some people irrationally assume something beforehand, then pass judgment on it themselves and draw conclusions from it; and, treating the poet as though he had said what they suppose, they censure him if it contradicts their own opinion.\nThis is what has happened in the matter of Icarius. People suppose that he was a Spartan;\n[Bekker 1461b line 5]\nit is therefore considered absurd that Telemachus did not meet him when he came to Lacedaemon. But perhaps the facts are as the Cephallenians say: they claim that Odysseus married among them and that the man’s name was Icadius, not Icarius; and the problem is † likely † due to an error.\nIn general, what is impossible must be referred either to the requirements of\n[Bekker 1461b line 10]\npoetry, to the ideal, or to accepted belief.\nFor the purposes of poetry, a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility;\n... people may not be such as Zeuxis painted them, but he painted them better; for the model ought to surpass reality.\nAs for irrationalities, they must be referred to what people say; and it may also be answered that sometimes a thing is not irrational,\n[Bekker 1461b line 15]\nfor it is probable that improbable things will happen.\nStatements that appear contradictory must be examined as refutations are in argument: whether the same thing is said of the same subject and in the same respect, so that one must consider †the man himself† either in relation to what he himself says or to what an intelligent person would assume.\nBut criticism for irrationality and moral baseness is justified when, without any necessity,\n[Bekker 1461b line 20]\nthe poet makes use of the irrational, as Euripides does with Aegeus, or of moral baseness, as in the character of Menelaus in the Orestes.\nObjections, then, are brought under five heads: things are censured as impossible, irrational, harmful, contradictory, or contrary to correctness in the relevant art. The solutions must be sought among the\n[Bekker 1461b line 25]\ndistinctions already stated; they are twelve in number.\n\n### Chapter 26\n\nOne might raise the question whether epic or tragic imitation is superior.\nFor if the less vulgar art is superior, and such an art is always the one addressed to the better class of spectators, it is perfectly clear that the art which imitates everything is vulgar;\nfor performers assume that the audience will not understand unless\n[Bekker 1461b line 30]\nthey themselves add something, and so they indulge in excessive movement, like bad flute players, who roll about when they must imitate the throwing of a discus and drag the chorus leader around when they play Scylla.\nTragedy, then, is said to have this character, just as the older actors judged their successors. Mynniscus, for example,\n[Bekker 1461b line 35]\ncalled Callippides an ape because he overacted so excessively, and a similar opinion was held of\n[Bekker 1462a]\n[Bekker 1462a line 1]\nPindarus. As these later actors stand in relation to their predecessors, so the whole art of tragedy is said to stand in relation to epic.\nEpic, then, is said to address cultivated spectators, who have no need of gestures, whereas tragedy addresses an inferior audience; if, therefore, tragedy is vulgar, it would clearly be the worse art.\nFirst,\n[Bekker 1462a line 5]\nthe charge is directed not against the poetic art but against the art of acting, since it is possible to overelaborate gestures even when reciting epic, as Sosistratus did, and when singing lyric poetry, as Mnasitheus of Opus used to do.\nSecond, not every kind of movement is to be condemned, unless dancing too is to be condemned, but only the movement of inferior performers—the fault for which Callippides was criticized and for which others are criticized\n[Bekker 1462a line 10]\ntoday, on the ground that they imitate women who are not freeborn.\nMoreover, tragedy accomplishes its proper effect even without movement, just as epic does; for its quality is evident from the reading. If, then, tragedy is superior in other respects, it need not possess this defect.\nFurther, tragedy has everything that epic has\n(for it can even employ epic\n[Bekker 1462a line 15]\nmeter), and in addition it has no small element in music, through which its pleasures are rendered most vividly;\nit also possesses vividness both in reading and in performance;\nmoreover, the end of its imitation is attained within a shorter compass\n[Bekker 1462b]\n[Bekker 1462b line 1]\n—for what is more concentrated is more pleasurable than what is diluted over a long span of time. I mean, for example, what the effect would be if one were to put Sophocles’ Oedipus into as many lines as the Iliad.\nFurthermore, the imitation of the epic poets has less unity—a sign of this is that several\n[Bekker 1462b line 5]\ntragedies can be made from any one of their imitations. Thus, if they construct a single plot, it will either appear curtailed if presented briefly, or, if extended to match the length proper to the meter, it will appear diluted. I mean the case in which the poem is composed of several actions,\nas the Iliad and the Odyssey contain many such parts, each of which\n[Bekker 1462b line 10]\nhas magnitude in itself. And yet these poems are constructed as well as possible and are, to the greatest possible extent, imitations of a single action.\nIf, then, tragedy surpasses epic in all these respects, and also in fulfilling the function of the art—for the two arts must produce not just any pleasure, but the pleasure already specified—it is evident that tragedy would be superior, since it attains its\n[Bekker 1462b line 15]\nend more fully than epic.\nConcerning tragedy and epic, then—their natures, their forms and parts, how many these are and how they differ, the causes of artistic success or failure, and objections and their solutions—let this much suffice....","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/poetics/translations/trn_poetics_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_poetics_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from all 26 Ancient Greek chapters with all 279 Bekker markers preserved.","text":"### Chapter 1\n\n[Bekker 1447a]\n[Bekker 1447a line 8]\nLet us discuss poetry itself and its kinds, the particular capacity each kind has, how plots should be constructed\n[Bekker 1447a line 10]\nif the poetry is to be successful, how many and what sorts of parts it consists of, and likewise all the other matters belonging to the same inquiry, beginning naturally with first principles.\n\nEpic poetry, then, and the making of tragedy, as well as comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and most music for the flute and the lyre, all happen to be, taken as a whole, imitations.\n[Bekker 1447a line 15]\nBut they differ from one another in three respects: they imitate either by different means, or different objects, or in a different manner and not in the same way.\n\nFor just as some people imitate many things by producing likenesses with colors and shapes—some\n[Bekker 1447a line 20]\nthrough skill and others through practice—while others do so through the voice, so too, in all the arts mentioned, imitation is produced through rhythm, language, and melody, these being used either separately or in combination.\n\nFor example, flute music and lyre music use melody and rhythm alone, as do any\n[Bekker 1447a line 25]\nother arts that happen to have the same capacity, such as the art of playing panpipes.\n\nThe art of dancers uses rhythm by itself, without melody, since dancers too imitate character, emotion, and action through rhythms formed into figures.\n\nBut the art that uses only plain language, and the one that uses metrical language, whether\n[Bekker 1447b]\n[Bekker 1447b line 8]\ncombining different meters with one another or using a single kind of meter, happen to have no name even now.\n\nFor we have no\n[Bekker 1447b line 10]\ncommon name to give to the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues, nor to an imitation that someone might produce in trimeters, elegiac couplets, or any other such meters.\n\nPeople do, however, attach the making to the meter and call some writers elegiac poets and others epic poets, naming them poets not\n[Bekker 1447b line 15]\naccording to their imitation but collectively according to their meter.\n\nFor even if writers present a medical or scientific subject in meter, people customarily call them poets. Yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except meter, so it is right to call the former a poet, but the latter a natural philosopher rather than\n[Bekker 1447b line 20]\na poet.\n\nLikewise, even if someone were to produce an imitation by combining every kind of meter, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, a mixed rhapsody composed in every kind of meter, he should still be called a poet. Let these matters, then, be distinguished in this way.\n\nThere are also some arts that use all the\n[Bekker 1447b line 25]\nmeans mentioned—I mean rhythm, song, and meter—as do dithyrambic poetry, nome poetry, tragedy, and comedy. They differ, however, in that some use all these means simultaneously, while others use them at different times.\n\nThese, then, are what I call the differences among the arts in the means by which they produce imitation.\n\n### Chapter 2\n\n[Bekker 1448a]\n[Bekker 1448a line 1]\nSince those who imitate imitate people in action, and since these people must be either admirable or inferior—for characters almost always conform to these two categories alone, since everyone differs in character through vice and virtue—they must be represented either as better than we are, or worse,\n[Bekker 1448a line 5]\nor just like us, as painters do.\n\nPolygnotus portrayed people as better, Pauson as worse, and Dionysius as like us.\n\nIt is clear that each of the imitations mentioned will also have these differences and will be different by imitating different objects in this way.\n\nFor these dissimilarities can occur in dancing, flute playing, and\n[Bekker 1448a line 10]\nlyre playing, as well as in language and unaccompanied verse. Homer, for example, represents people as better than we are; Cleophon as like us; and Hegemon of Thasos, who was the first to compose parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, as worse.\n\nThe same is true of dithyrambs and\n[Bekker 1448a line 15]\nnomes, as one might imitate †earth† and Cyclopes, as Timotheus and Philoxenus did.\n\nIt is through this very difference that tragedy is distinguished from comedy: comedy aims to imitate people worse than those of the present day, while tragedy aims to imitate people better.\n\n### Chapter 3\n\nThere is also a third difference among these arts: the manner in which someone might\n[Bekker 1448a line 20]\nimitate each of these objects.\n\nFor it is possible to imitate the same objects by the same means sometimes by narrating, either becoming someone else, as Homer does, or remaining oneself without changing, or by presenting all †the imitators† as acting and engaged in action.\n\nImitation, then, involves these three differences,\n[Bekker 1448a line 25]\nas we said at the beginning: the means, the objects, and the manner.\n\nThus, in one respect Sophocles would be the same kind of imitator as Homer, since both imitate admirable people, but in another respect he would be the same kind as Aristophanes, since both imitate people acting and doing things. This is also why some say these works are called dramas: because they imitate people doing things.\n\nFor this reason,\n[Bekker 1448a line 30]\nthe Dorians lay claim to both tragedy and comedy. Comedy is claimed by the Megarians—both those here, who say that it arose during their democracy, and those from Sicily, since the poet Epicharmus came from there and lived much earlier than Chionides and Magnes. Tragedy is also claimed by some\n[Bekker 1448a line 35]\nof the Dorians in the Peloponnese. They offer the words themselves as evidence.\n\nThey say that they call the outlying villages kōmai, while the Athenians call them dēmoi, implying that comic performers were called kōmōdoi not from kōmazein, “to revel,” but because, being excluded in disgrace from the city, they wandered from village to village.\n[Bekker 1448b]\n[Bekker 1448b line 1]\nThey also say that they use dran for “to do,” while the Athenians use prattein.\n\nLet this, then, suffice concerning the differences in imitation, both how many there are and what they are.\n\n### Chapter 4\n\nTwo causes appear to have given rise to poetry as a whole,\n[Bekker 1448b line 5]\nand both are natural.\n\nFirst, imitation is natural to human beings from childhood, and in this respect they differ from the other animals: a human being is the most imitative of animals and acquires the first lessons through imitation. Second, everyone takes pleasure in imitations.\n\nEvidence for this is what happens\n[Bekker 1448b line 10]\nwith works of art. We take pleasure in looking at the most exact images of things that are painful for us to look at in themselves, such as the forms of the most repulsive animals and of corpses.\n\nThe reason for this too is that learning is most pleasant not only for philosophers but equally for everyone else, though they share in it only to a limited\n[Bekker 1448b line 15]\nextent.\n\nThis is why people take pleasure in looking at images: as they view them, they happen to learn and reason out what each thing is—for example, “That person is this one.”\n\nFor if someone has not happened to see the subject before, the image will give pleasure not as an imitation but because of its workmanship, its color, or some other cause of that sort.\n\n[Bekker 1448b line 20]\nSince imitation, melody, and rhythm are natural to us—and it is clear that meters are parts of rhythms—those who were naturally most gifted in these things gradually developed them from the beginning and produced poetry out of improvisations.\n\nPoetry then divided according to the poets’ own characters.\n[Bekker 1448b line 25]\nThe more dignified imitated noble actions and the actions of noble people, while the less elevated imitated the actions of inferior people, at first composing invectives, just as the others composed hymns and encomiums.\n\nWe cannot name any such poem by anyone before Homer, though it is likely that there were many.\n\nBut beginning with Homer,\n[Bekker 1448b line 30]\nexamples can be given, such as his Margites and other works of that kind. In these, the iambic meter also appeared because it was appropriate. This is why it is now called “iambic”: because in this meter people used to lampoon one another.\n\nThus, among the ancient poets, some became poets of heroic verse and others poets of iambic verse.\n\nAnd just as Homer was the supreme poet of serious subjects\n[Bekker 1448b line 35]\n—for he alone not only composed well but also produced dramatic imitations—so too he was the first to indicate the form of comedy, dramatizing not invective but the ridiculous. For the Margites stands in the same relation to comedies as the Iliad\n[Bekker 1449a]\n[Bekker 1449a line 1]\nand the Odyssey stand to tragedies.\n\nOnce tragedy and comedy had appeared, poets were drawn to one or the other kind of poetry according to their own natural disposition. Some became writers of comedy instead of iambic verse,\n[Bekker 1449a line 5]\nwhile others became producers of tragedy instead of epic poets, because these forms were greater and more honored than the earlier ones.\n\nWhether tragedy has by now sufficiently developed all its forms or not, judged both in itself and in relation to theatrical performances, is another question.\n\nAt any rate, tragedy originated in improvisation,\n[Bekker 1449a line 10]\nas did comedy: tragedy from those who led off the dithyramb, and comedy from those who led the phallic songs, which even now remain customary in many cities. Tragedy then grew little by little, as poets developed whatever aspect of it had become apparent.\n\nAfter undergoing many changes,\n[Bekker 1449a line 15]\ntragedy ceased changing once it had attained its own nature.\n\nAeschylus was the first to increase the number of actors from one to two; he reduced the role of the chorus and made spoken dialogue take the leading role. Sophocles introduced three actors and scene painting.\n\nThere was also the matter of scale. Developing from short plots and\n[Bekker 1449a line 20]\nridiculous language, because it had evolved out of the satyric form, tragedy acquired dignity only at a late stage, and its meter changed from the tetrameter to the iambic meter.\n\nAt first poets used the tetrameter because the poetry was satyric and more suited to dancing. But once speech was introduced, its own nature discovered the meter appropriate to it, since the iambic is the most\n[Bekker 1449a line 25]\nconversational of the meters. Evidence for this is that in conversation with one another we speak iambic rhythms most often, but hexameters only rarely and only when departing from the natural rhythm of speech.\n\nThere was also the increase in the number of episodes. As for the other features and the way each is said to have been embellished,\n[Bekker 1449a line 30]\nlet what has been said suffice, since it would perhaps be a great task to go through every detail.\n\n### Chapter 5\n\nComedy is, as we have said, an imitation of people who are inferior, though not in every kind of vice; rather, the ridiculous is one part of the ugly.\nFor the ridiculous is\n[Bekker 1449a line 35]\na kind of error and ugliness that is painless and not destructive, as, for example, a comic mask is something ugly and distorted without causing pain.\nThe developments of tragedy, then, and those through whom they came about have not been forgotten, but comedy, because it was not\n[Bekker 1449b]\n[Bekker 1449b line 1]\ntaken seriously from the beginning, went unnoticed; for it was only at a late date that the archon granted a chorus to comic poets, and before that the performers were volunteers.\nOnce comedy had already acquired certain forms of its own, those called its poets are remembered. But who introduced masks, prologues, or\n[Bekker 1449b line 5]\na plurality of actors, and other such things, is unknown.\nThe making of plots originally came from Sicily,\nwhile among the Athenians Crates was the first to abandon the iambic form and begin composing speeches and plots of a general kind.\nEpic poetry, then, followed tragedy insofar as it is an imitation of serious subjects\n[Bekker 1449b line 10]\nin metrical language; but they differ in that epic uses a single meter and is narrative.\nThey also differ in length: tragedy tries as far as possible to fit within a single circuit of the sun, or to exceed it only slightly, whereas epic poetry is unlimited in time, and differs in this respect,\nalthough\n[Bekker 1449b line 15]\nat first poets did this in the same way in tragedies as in epics.\nSome of their parts are the same, while others are peculiar to tragedy.\nTherefore, anyone who knows what makes a good or bad tragedy also knows about epics; for everything epic poetry has belongs to tragedy, but not everything belonging to tragedy is found in\n[Bekker 1449b line 20]\nepic poetry.\n\n### Chapter 6\n\nWe will speak later about the imitative art that uses hexameters and about comedy. Let us now speak about tragedy, taking up from what has been said the definition that emerges of its essential nature.\nTragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,\n[Bekker 1449b line 25]\ncomplete, and of a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of embellishment used separately in the different parts, performed by people acting and not through narration, accomplishing through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.\nBy “embellished language” I mean language possessing rhythm and melody,\nand by “each kind used\n[Bekker 1449b line 30]\nseparately” I mean that some parts are carried out through meter alone and others, in turn, through song.\nSince the imitation is performed by people acting, the arrangement of the spectacle must first of all be one part of tragedy; next come song and diction, since these are the means through which the imitation is performed.\nBy “diction” I mean the actual composition of the\n[Bekker 1449b line 35]\nmetrical language, while the meaning of “song” is entirely evident.\nAnd since tragedy is an imitation of an action, and an action is performed by certain agents, who must necessarily be people of a certain kind in both character and thought—for it is through these that we also say\n[Bekker 1450a]\n[Bekker 1450a line 1]\nactions are of a certain kind, and it is according to these that everyone succeeds or fails—\nthe imitation of the action is the plot, for by “plot” I mean the\n[Bekker 1450a line 5]\norganization of the events; “characters” are that according to which we say the agents are people of a certain kind; and “thought” is found in all the things they say when they prove something or express a judgment—\nevery tragedy must therefore have six parts, according to which the tragedy is of a certain quality. These are plot, character, diction,\n[Bekker 1450a line 10]\nthought, spectacle, and song.\nThe means by which they imitate comprise two parts, the manner in which they imitate one, and the objects they imitate three; beyond these there is nothing.\nWith these forms, then, † not a few of them †, so to speak, have been used; for † everything has spectacle †, as well as character, plot, diction, song, and thought.\n[Bekker 1450a line 15]\nThe greatest of these is the organization of the events. For tragedy is an imitation not of human beings but of actions and life\n[Bekker 1450a line 20]\n.\nThe agents therefore do not act in order to imitate characters; rather, they include character for the sake of the actions. Consequently, the events and the plot are the end of tragedy, and the end is the most important thing of all.\nMoreover, there could be no tragedy without action, but there could be one without character.\n[Bekker 1450a line 25]\nFor most modern tragedies are without character, and in general many poets are like this, just as among painters Zeuxis stands in relation to Polygnotus: Polygnotus is a good painter of character, while the painting of Zeuxis has no character at all.\nFurthermore, if someone sets out in succession speeches expressive of character and well made in\n[Bekker 1450a line 30]\ndiction and thought, he will not produce what was the function of tragedy. A tragedy that uses these elements less well but has a plot and an organization of events will accomplish that function much more fully.\nIn addition, the most powerful means by which tragedy moves the soul are parts of the plot: reversals and\n[Bekker 1450a line 35]\nrecognitions.\nFurther evidence is that those attempting to compose tragedies become capable of achieving precision in diction and character before they can organize the events, as was true of almost all the earliest poets.\nThe plot, then, is the first principle and, as it were, the soul of tragedy; character comes second\n(for the same is also true\n[Bekker 1450b]\n[Bekker 1450b line 1]\nin painting: if someone were to smear on the most beautiful colors at random, he would not give as much pleasure as if he had drawn an image in outline).\nTragedy is an imitation of an action, and chiefly for the sake of the action it is also an imitation of the agents.\nThought comes third. This\n[Bekker 1450b line 5]\nis the ability to say what is possible and appropriate, which, in speeches, is the function of political and rhetorical art.\nThe ancient poets made their characters speak politically, but poets now make them speak rhetorically.\nCharacter is that which reveals choice—what sort of choice it is;\n[Bekker 1450b line 10]\ntherefore speeches in\n[Bekker 1450b line 10a]\nwhich the speaker does not choose or avoid anything at all possess no character—\nwhile thought is present in statements in which speakers prove that something is or is not the case, or express some general judgment.\nFourth among † the parts of speech † is diction. By “diction,” as was said earlier, I mean expression through the use of words, which has the same function both in metrical language and\n[Bekker 1450b line 15]\nin prose.\nOf the remaining parts, song is the greatest of the embellishments.\nSpectacle is emotionally compelling, but it is the least artistic and the least proper to the art of poetry; for the power of tragedy exists even without a performance and actors, and, moreover, the art of the stage designer is more authoritative than that of the poets in producing\n[Bekker 1450b line 20]\nthe visual effects.\n\n### Chapter 7\n\nNow that these matters have been defined, let us next discuss what sort of organization the events should have, since this is both the first and the greatest part of tragedy.\nWe have established that tragedy is an imitation of a complete and whole action\n[Bekker 1450b line 25]\npossessing a certain magnitude, since something can be whole without possessing any magnitude.\nA whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.\nA beginning is that which does not itself necessarily come after something else, but after which something else naturally is or comes to be.\nAn end, by contrast, is that which itself naturally comes after something else,\n[Bekker 1450b line 30]\neither necessarily or for the most part, but after which there is nothing else.\nA middle is that which itself comes after something else and has something else after it.\nWell-organized plots, therefore, must neither begin at a random point nor end at a random point, but must use the forms just described.\nMoreover, since a beautiful thing—whether an animal or any\n[Bekker 1450b line 35]\nobject composed of parts—must not only have those parts arranged in order but must also possess a magnitude that is not arbitrary, for beauty consists in magnitude and order,\nneither could an extremely small animal be beautiful, since our perception of it becomes confused because it occurs in an interval of time that is nearly imperceptible, nor could an extremely large one be beautiful, since\n[Bekker 1451a]\n[Bekker 1451a line 1]\nour perception of it does not occur all at once, and its unity and wholeness escape the observers’ view—as, for example, if there were an animal ten thousand stades long.\nThus, just as bodies and animals must possess magnitude, but a magnitude that can easily be taken in as a whole, so\n[Bekker 1451a line 5]\nplots too must possess length, but a length that can easily be remembered.\nThe limit of length in relation to dramatic competitions and the audience’s perception does not belong to the art itself; for if a hundred tragedies had to compete, they would compete against water clocks, † as they say happened once on another occasion †.\nBut the limit determined by the very nature\n[Bekker 1451a line 10]\nof the action is this: a greater length is always more beautiful in respect to magnitude, so long as the whole remains clear. To give a simple definition, a sufficient limit of magnitude is the length within which, as events follow one another according to probability or necessity, a change can occur from misfortune to good fortune or from good fortune to misfortune.\n[Bekker 1451a line 15]\n\n### Chapter 8\n\nA plot is not unified, as some people think, merely because it concerns one person. Many indeed infinitely many things happen to one person, and some of them do not constitute any unity. In the same way, one person performs many actions from which no single action results.\nTherefore, all those poets seem\n[Bekker 1451a line 20]\nto have gone wrong who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, and similar poems. They suppose that, because Heracles was one person, the plot too should appropriately be one.\nBut Homer, just as he excels in other respects, also seems to have understood this point correctly, whether through art or natural talent. For in composing the Odyssey,\n[Bekker 1451a line 25]\nhe did not include everything that happened to Odysseus—for example, his being wounded on Parnassus and his pretending to be insane at the muster—since, when either one happened, it was neither necessary nor probable that the other should happen. Instead, he organized the Odyssey around one action of the kind we are describing, and likewise the Iliad.\n[Bekker 1451a line 30]\nTherefore, just as in the other imitative arts a single imitation is an imitation of one thing, so too the plot, since it is an imitation of an action, must be the imitation of one action, and that a whole one. Its component events must be organized in such a way that, if any part is moved or removed, the whole is disrupted and disturbed; for something whose presence\n[Bekker 1451a line 35]\nor absence makes no perceptible difference is no part of the whole.\n\n### Chapter 9\n\nIt is also clear from what has been said that the poet’s task is not to tell what has happened, but what might happen and what is possible according to probability or necessity.\nFor the\n[Bekker 1451b]\n[Bekker 1451b line 1]\nhistorian and the poet differ not in speaking in verse or without verse—for Herodotus’s work could be put into verse, and it would be no less a kind of history in verse than without verse—but in this: the one tells what has happened\n[Bekker 1451b line 5]\nand the other what might happen.\nFor this reason poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, while history speaks of particulars.\nA universal is the kind of thing that a certain kind of person will probably or necessarily say or do, which\n[Bekker 1451b line 10]\npoetry aims at even when it assigns names; a particular is what Alcibiades did or what happened to him.\nIn comedy this has by now become clear: the poets construct the plot through probable events and then assign whatever names occur to them, rather than composing about a particular person\n[Bekker 1451b line 15]\nas the iambic poets do.\nIn tragedy, however, they keep to names that have actually existed. The reason is that what is possible is credible. We do not yet believe that things which have not happened are possible, whereas it is clear that things which have happened are possible, since they would not have happened if they were impossible.\nNevertheless, even among tragedies, in some there are one\n[Bekker 1451b line 20]\nor two familiar names and the others are invented, while in some there are none, as in Agathon’s Antheus; for in that play both the events and the names are invented, and it gives no less pleasure.\nTherefore one should not insist in every case on keeping to the traditional stories on which tragedies\n[Bekker 1451b line 25]\nare based. Indeed, it is ridiculous to insist on this, since even familiar stories are familiar to only a few, yet they nevertheless give pleasure to everyone.\nIt is clear from this, then, that the poet must be a maker of plots rather than of verses, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of imitation, and what he imitates is actions.\nAnd even if he happens\n[Bekker 1451b line 30]\nto compose about things that have happened, he is no less a poet; for nothing prevents some things that have happened from being such as might probably happen, and insofar as they are such, he is their poet.\nOf simple plots and actions, the episodic ones are the worst. By an episodic plot I mean one in which the\n[Bekker 1451b line 35]\nepisodes follow one another with neither probability nor necessity.\nSuch plots are made by bad poets because of their own shortcomings, and by good poets because of the actors; for when they compose competition pieces and stretch the plot beyond its capacity,\n[Bekker 1452a]\n[Bekker 1452a line 1]\nthey are often forced to distort the sequence of events.\nSince imitation is not\n[Bekker 1452a line 2]\nonly of a complete action but also of things that arouse fear and pity, and these arise especially when events occur contrary to expectation but because of one another,\nthe\n[Bekker 1452a line 5]\nastonishing will be greater in this way than if the events occur spontaneously or by chance. For even among chance events, those seem most astonishing that appear to have happened as if by design. For example, the statue of Mitys at Argos killed the man responsible for Mitys’s death by falling on him while he was watching it; for events of this kind\n[Bekker 1452a line 10]\ndo not seem to happen at random.\nIt follows that plots of this kind must be finer.\n\n### Chapter 10\n\nSome plots are simple and others complex, since the actions of which plots are imitations are themselves naturally of these kinds.\nBy a simple action I mean one in which,\n[Bekker 1452a line 15]\nas previously defined, the action is continuous and unified, and the change occurs without reversal or recognition;\nby a complex action I mean one in which the change occurs with recognition or reversal or both.\nThese must arise from the structure of the plot itself, so that, as a result of what has happened before,\n[Bekker 1452a line 20]\nthey occur either by necessity or according to probability; for there is a great difference between one event happening because of another and one event merely happening after another.\n\n### Chapter 11\n\nA reversal is a change by which the action turns into its opposite, as has been stated, and this too, as we say, must occur according to probability or necessity.\nFor example, in the\n[Bekker 1452a line 25]\nOedipus, the messenger comes intending to cheer Oedipus and free him from his fear concerning his mother, but by revealing who Oedipus was, he produces the opposite result.\nAnd in the Lynceus, Lynceus is being led away to die, while Danaus follows intending to kill him; but as a result of what has happened, Danaus dies and Lynceus is saved.\nRecognition\n[Bekker 1452a line 30]\nis, as the name itself indicates, a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to enmity among people destined for good or bad fortune.\nThe finest recognition is one that occurs together with a reversal, as does the recognition in the Oedipus.\nThere are, then, other kinds of recognition as well. Recognition can occur even in relation to inanimate and\n[Bekker 1452a line 35]\nchance things, † as has been stated †, and it is also possible to recognize whether someone has or has not done something.\nBut the recognition most integral to the plot and most integral to the action is the one just described; for a recognition and reversal of this kind will produce either pity\n[Bekker 1452b]\n[Bekker 1452b line 1]\nor fear—the kinds of actions of which tragedy is assumed to be an imitation—since both bad fortune and good fortune will arise from such events.\nSince recognition is recognition between certain people, some recognitions involve only one person recognizing the other, when it is already clear who the other person\n[Bekker 1452b line 5]\nis; but sometimes both must recognize each other. For example, Iphigenia was recognized by Orestes through her sending of the letter, but another recognition was needed for Orestes to be recognized by Iphigenia.\nTwo parts of the plot, then, are these: reversal\n[Bekker 1452b line 10]\nand recognition. A third is suffering. Reversal and recognition have now been discussed.\nSuffering is a destructive or painful action, such as deaths in full view, extreme agonies, woundings, and things of that kind.\n\n### Chapter 12\n\nWe previously stated the parts of tragedy that must be used as its kinds\n[Bekker 1452b line 15]\nof elements. In terms of quantity, however, and the separate sections into which tragedy is divided, they are these: prologue, episode, exode, and choral part;\nthe choral part is divided into parodos and stasimon.\nThese are common to all tragedies, while songs from the stage and laments shared by the chorus and actors are distinctive features.\nThe prologue is a complete part of a tragedy preceding the chorus’s\n[Bekker 1452b line 20]\nparodos.\nAn episode is a complete part of a tragedy between complete choral songs.\nThe exode is a complete part of a tragedy after which there is no choral song.\nOf the choral part, the parodos is the chorus’s first complete utterance.\nThe stasimon is a choral song without anapests or trochees.\nA kommos is a lament shared by the chorus and those on the\n[Bekker 1452b line 25]\nstage.\nWe previously stated the parts of tragedy that must be used as its kinds of elements; in terms of quantity, however, and the separate sections into which tragedy is divided, these are its parts.\n\n### Chapter 13\n\nWhat one should aim at and what one should avoid in constructing plots, and from what source tragedy will achieve its effect,\n[Bekker 1452b line 30]\nwould be the next subject to discuss after what has now been said.\nSince, then, the structure of the finest tragedy must be not simple but complex, and since it must imitate fearful and pitiable events—for this is distinctive of this kind of imitation—it is clear, first, that decent men should not be shown\n[Bekker 1452b line 35]\nchanging from good fortune to bad fortune, since this is neither fearful nor pitiable but morally repulsive;\nnor should wicked men change from bad fortune to good fortune, since this is the most untragic of all outcomes, for it has none of the qualities required: it is neither morally satisfying\n[Bekker 1453a]\n[Bekker 1453a line 1]\nnor pitiable nor fearful;\nnor, again, should an extremely evil man fall from good fortune into bad fortune. Such a structure might indeed satisfy our moral sense, but it would arouse neither pity nor fear, since pity concerns someone who suffers undeservedly, while fear concerns someone like ourselves:\n[Bekker 1453a line 5]\npity concerns the undeserving sufferer, and fear concerns someone like ourselves. Consequently, what happens will be neither pitiable nor fearful.\nThe person between these extremes therefore remains. Such a person is one who is not outstanding in virtue and justice, and whose change to bad fortune is caused not by vice and wickedness but by\n[Bekker 1453a line 10]\nsome error; he is one of those who enjoy great reputation and prosperity, such as Oedipus, Thyestes, and distinguished men from families of that kind.\nA well-constructed plot must therefore be single rather than double, as some say, and must involve a change not from bad fortune to good fortune but, on the contrary,\n[Bekker 1453a line 15]\nfrom good fortune to bad fortune, caused not by wickedness but by a great error on the part of someone of the kind described, or someone better rather than worse.\nWhat actually happens is evidence of this. At first, poets used to recount whatever plots came to hand, but now the finest tragedies are composed about a few families, such as\n[Bekker 1453a line 20]\nthose of Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and all the others who happened either to suffer terrible things or to do them.\nThe finest tragedy according to the principles of the art, then, comes from this kind of structure.\nThat is why those who criticize Euripides because he does this\n[Bekker 1453a line 25]\nin his tragedies and because many of them end in bad fortune make the same mistake. For this, as has been said, is correct.\nThe strongest evidence is that, on the stage and in dramatic competitions, tragedies of this kind, if successfully executed, appear the most tragic; and Euripides, even if he does not manage other matters well, nevertheless\n[Bekker 1453a line 30]\nappears to be the most tragic of the poets.\nSecond best is the structure that some call the best: one that has a double structure, like the Odyssey, and ends in opposite ways for the better and the worse characters.\nIt is thought to be the best because of the weakness of theater audiences, for poets follow the spectators\n[Bekker 1453a line 35]\nand compose according to their wishes.\nBut this is not the pleasure proper to tragedy; it belongs more properly to comedy. There, those who are the bitterest enemies in the plot, such as Orestes and Aegisthus, leave at the end after becoming friends, and no one is killed by anyone.\n\n### Chapter 14\n\n[Bekker 1453b]\n[Bekker 1453b line 1]\nThe fearful and the pitiable can arise from the spectacle, but they can also arise from the very structure of the events, which is preferable and the mark of a better poet.\nFor the plot should be so constructed that, even without seeing the action, a person who\n[Bekker 1453b line 5]\nhears the events taking place will shudder and feel pity because of what happens, as someone would when hearing the plot of Oedipus.\nTo produce this effect through the spectacle is less artistic and requires theatrical resources.\nThose who use spectacle to produce not\n[Bekker 1453b line 9]\nthe fearful but only the monstrous\n[Bekker 1453b line 10]\nhave nothing in common with tragedy. For one should not seek every kind of pleasure from tragedy, but only the pleasure proper to it.\nSince the poet must produce through imitation the pleasure that comes from pity and fear, it is clear that this must be built into the events.\nLet us therefore determine what kinds of occurrences appear\n[Bekker 1453b line 15]\nterrible or pitiable. Such actions must necessarily take place between friends, between enemies, or between people who are neither.\nIf an enemy acts against an enemy, there is nothing pitiable either in what he does or in what he intends to do, except in the suffering itself;\nnor is there if the people are neither friends nor enemies.\nBut when these sufferings arise within close relationships,\n[Bekker 1453b line 20]\nas when a brother kills or intends to kill a brother, a son his father, a mother her son, or a son his mother, or does some other such thing, these are the situations one should seek.\nNow, one cannot undo the traditional plots—I mean, for example, that Clytemnestra was killed by Orestes and Eriphyle by Alcmaeon—\n[Bekker 1453b line 25]\nbut the poet must invent for himself and make good use of the tradition. Let us explain more clearly what we mean by “good.”\nThe action may happen in the way the early poets represented it, with the characters acting knowingly and with full awareness, just as Euripides represented Medea killing her children.\nOr they may\n[Bekker 1453b line 30]\ncommit the deed but commit the terrible act in ignorance, and only afterward recognize the close relationship, as Sophocles’ Oedipus does. In that case the act lies outside the drama, but it may occur within the tragedy itself, as in Astydamas’ Alcmaeon or in the Telegonus of The Wounded Odysseus.\nThere is also a third possibility besides these:\n[Bekker 1453b line 35]\nsomeone who is about to commit an irreparable act in ignorance may recognize the victim before committing it.\nApart from these, there is no other possibility. The deed must either be done or not done, and the characters must either know or not know.\nOf these possibilities, the worst is for someone knowingly to intend the deed but not perform it. This is morally repulsive and not tragic, since no suffering occurs. That is why no one\n[Bekker 1454a]\n[Bekker 1454a line 1]\nwrites such a situation, except rarely, as in Antigone, where Haemon intends to kill Creon.\nThe second possibility is to perform the deed knowingly.\nBetter is to perform it in ignorance and then recognize the victim afterward, for the act is not morally repulsive, and the recognition is astonishing.\nThe best possibility\n[Bekker 1454a line 5]\nis the last one. I mean, for example, that in Cresphontes Merope is about to kill her son, but does not kill him and instead recognizes him; in Iphigenia the sister is about to kill her brother; and in Helle the son, when about to surrender his mother, recognizes her.\nThis is why, as was said earlier, tragedies concern only a small number\n[Bekker 1454a line 10]\nof families. For poets discovered how to produce such effects in their plots not by art but by chance, through searching; they are therefore compelled to turn to those families in which sufferings of this kind happened.\nEnough, then, has been said about the structure of events and about what kinds of plots there should be.\n[Bekker 1454a line 15]\n\n### Chapter 15\n\nAs for character, there are four things at which one should aim. The first and foremost is that the characters be good.\nA work will have character if, as has been said, the speech or action makes some choice evident, whatever that choice may be; and it will have good character if\n[Bekker 1454a line 20]\nthe choice is good.\nGoodness is possible in every class of person. A woman can be good, and so can a slave, although perhaps the former is inferior and the latter wholly insignificant.\nThe second thing is appropriateness. A character may be courageous, but it is not appropriate for a woman to be courageous or formidable in this way.\nThe third is likeness. This is different\n[Bekker 1454a line 25]\nfrom making the character good and appropriate, as previously stated.\nThe fourth is consistency. Even if the person who provides the subject for the imitation is inconsistent and such a character is assumed, he must nevertheless be consistently inconsistent.\nAn example of unnecessary badness of character is Menelaus in Orestes;\nof what is unsuitable and inappropriate, Odysseus’s lament in Scylla and Melanippe’s speech;\n[Bekker 1454a line 30]\nand of inconsistency, Iphigenia at Aulis, for the Iphigenia who begs for her life bears no resemblance to the later Iphigenia.\nIn character, just as in the structure of events, one must always seek either necessity or probability,\n[Bekker 1454a line 35]\nso that it is either necessary or probable for a person of a certain kind to say or do things of a certain kind, and either necessary or probable that this event should happen after that one.\nIt is therefore clear that the resolutions of plots must also arise from the plot itself,\n[Bekker 1454b]\n[Bekker 1454b line 1]\nand not from a stage machine, as in Medea and in the episode concerning the departure by sea in the Iliad.\nThe machine should instead be used for matters outside the drama: either events that happened beforehand and that a human being could not know, or later events\n[Bekker 1454b line 5]\nthat require prediction and announcement, since we grant to the gods the ability to see everything.\nThere should be nothing irrational in the events; but if there is, it should lie outside the tragedy, as does the irrational element in Sophocles’ Oedipus.\nSince tragedy is an imitation of people better than ourselves, poets should imitate good\n[Bekker 1454b line 10]\nportrait painters. For those painters, while reproducing a person’s distinctive form and making the portrait resemble him, paint him more beautiful. In the same way, when the poet imitates people who are irascible, easygoing, or possess other such traits of character, he must make them, while retaining those traits, decent—† an example of harshness, such as Achilles, good, and Homer †.\n[Bekker 1454b line 15]\nThese principles, then, must be observed, and in addition the matters contrary to the perceptions that necessarily accompany the poetic art, since errors can often be made in these matters too. Enough has been said about them in the published discussions.\n\n### Chapter 16\n\nWhat recognition is has been stated earlier. As for the kinds\n[Bekker 1454b line 20]\nof recognition, the first is the least artistic and the one poets use most often through lack of resources: recognition by signs.\nSome of these signs are congenital, such as the spearhead that the Earthborn bear\nor stars like those Carcinus uses in Thyestes; others are acquired, and of these some are on the body, such as scars, while others are external, such as\n[Bekker 1454b line 25]\nnecklaces and, in Tyro, the recognition by means of the little boat.\nThese signs too can be used either better or worse. Odysseus, for example, is recognized by his scar in one way by his nurse and in another by the swineherds.\nRecognitions introduced merely to establish identity are less artistic, as are all recognitions of this kind; but those that arise from a reversal, such as\n[Bekker 1454b line 30]\nthe recognition in The Washing, are better.\nThe second kind consists of recognitions invented by the poet, and for that reason they are inartistic. For example, in Iphigenia Orestes reveals that he is Orestes: she is recognized through the letter, while he himself says what the poet, rather than\n[Bekker 1454b line 35]\nthe plot, wants him to say.\nThis is therefore close to the error just mentioned, since he could have brought some tokens as well. Another example is the voice of the shuttle in Sophocles’ Tereus.\nThe third kind is recognition through memory, when someone perceives\n[Bekker 1455a]\n[Bekker 1455a line 1]\nsomething upon seeing it, as in Dicaeogenes’ Cyprians, where the man wept when he saw the painting, and in Odysseus’s narrative to Alcinous, where he shed tears when he heard the lyre player and remembered; and by these reactions they were recognized.\nThe fourth kind is recognition by inference, as in The Libation Bearers:\n[Bekker 1455a line 5]\n“Someone resembling me has arrived; no one resembles me except Orestes; therefore Orestes has arrived.” Another is the recognition concerning Iphigenia proposed by the sophist Polyidus, for he said that it was probable that Orestes would infer that his sister had been sacrificed and that it was now happening to him to be sacrificed as well. Another occurs in Theodectes’ Tydeus: having come in the belief that he would find his son, he himself\n[Bekker 1455a line 10]\nperishes. Another is the recognition in The Daughters of Phineus: when they saw the place, they inferred their fate, namely that they were destined to die there, since they had also been exposed there as infants.\nThere is also a kind compounded from the audience’s false inference, as in Odysseus the\n[Bekker 1455a line 14]\nFalse Messenger. The fact that he could string the bow while no one else\n[Bekker 1455a line 14a]\ncould was invented by the poet and made a premise,\n[Bekker 1455a line 14b]\neven if he said that he would recognize the bow, which he had not\n[Bekker 1455a line 15]\nseen; but to arrange matters as though he would be recognized by that means is a false inference.\nThe best recognition of all is the one that arises from the events themselves, when the astonishment comes about through probable events, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus and in Iphigenia, for it is probable that she would want to entrust a letter. Such recognitions\n[Bekker 1455a line 20]\nalone occur without invented signs and necklaces.\nSecond best are recognitions by inference.\n\n### Chapter 17\n\nIn constructing plots and working them out in language, the poet should place them before his eyes as vividly as possible. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost clarity, as though he were present at the events\n[Bekker 1455a line 25]\nthemselves, he will discover what is appropriate, and contradictions will be least likely to escape him.\nEvidence of this is the fault for which Carcinus was criticized. His Amphiaraus was returning from a temple, something that escaped the poet because he did not visualize it, but the play failed on the stage when the spectators took offense at it.\nAs far as possible, the poet should also work out the action through gestures;\n[Bekker 1455a line 30]\nfor, given the same natural disposition, those actually experiencing the emotions are the most convincing: the person in distress shows distress, and the angry person displays anger, most truthfully.\nThat is why poetry requires either a naturally gifted or a mad person: the former are readily adaptable, while the latter are capable of ecstasy.\nAs for stories, both those already composed and those the poet is composing himself, he should first set them out\n[Bekker 1455b]\n[Bekker 1455b line 1]\nin general outline, and only then introduce episodes and expand them.\nWhat I mean by viewing the general outline can be illustrated by the story of Iphigenia. A certain girl was offered in sacrifice and vanished without her sacrificers knowing how; she was established in another country, where\n[Bekker 1455b line 5]\nit was customary to sacrifice foreigners to the goddess, and she received this priesthood. Some time later, it happened that the priestess’s brother came there. The fact that the god’s oracle commanded him to go there, and the purpose for which it did so, lie outside the plot. But after arriving and being seized, when he was about to be sacrificed, he disclosed his identity, whether in the way Euripides represented it or in the way Polyidus did, saying, as was probable,\n[Bekker 1455b line 10]\nthat it was apparently necessary not only for his sister but also for him to be sacrificed; and from this comes his rescue.\nAfter this, once the characters have been given names, the poet should introduce the episodes.\nHe must make sure that the episodes are appropriate, as in the case of Orestes: the madness through which he was captured and\n[Bekker 1455b line 15]\nhis rescue through purification.\nIn dramas, then, the episodes are brief, but epic is lengthened by them.\nThe story of the Odyssey is not long: a man is away from home for many years, constantly watched by Poseidon, and completely alone; moreover, affairs at home are in such a state that\n[Bekker 1455b line 20]\nhis property is being consumed by suitors and his son is being plotted against. He himself arrives home after suffering through storms, reveals his identity to certain people, and launches an attack. He is saved, and he destroys his enemies.\nThis, then, is the essential story; everything else is episode.\n\n### Chapter 18\n\nEvery tragedy has one part that is complication and another that is resolution.\n[Bekker 1455b line 25]\nThe events outside the play, together with some of those within it, often constitute the complication, and the remainder constitutes the resolution.\nBy complication I mean everything from the beginning up to the last part from which the change to good fortune or bad fortune begins; by resolution I mean everything from the beginning of that change to the end.\nThus, in Theodectes’ Lynceus,\n[Bekker 1455b line 30]\nthe complication consists of the preceding events, the seizure of the child, and then the seizure of the parents themselves; the resolution extends from the accusation of murder to the end.\nThere are four kinds of tragedy, since the same number of constituent parts has also been stated:\nthe complex tragedy, whose whole consists of reversal and recognition;\nthe tragedy of suffering, such as the\n[Bekker 1456a]\n[Bekker 1456a line 1]\nplays about Ajax and Ixion;\nthe tragedy of character, such as The Women of Phthia and Peleus;\nand the fourth, †spectacular†, such as The Daughters of Phorcys, Prometheus, and all plays set in Hades.\nIdeally, the poet should try to include all these qualities; but if that is impossible, he should include the most important and as many as possible, especially\n[Bekker 1456a line 5]\nbecause of the way poets are now subjected to hostile criticism. Since excellent poets have arisen in each particular kind, critics expect a single poet to surpass each of them in the particular excellence that is his own.\nIt is also right to call one tragedy different from or the same as another on no basis so much as its plot—that is, when they have the same complication and resolution.\nMany poets construct the complication well\n[Bekker 1456a line 10]\nbut resolve it badly.\nBoth, however, must always be mastered.\nOne must remember what has often been said and not turn a tragedy into an epic structure—by an epic structure I mean one containing many stories—as someone would if he made the whole story of the Iliad into a tragedy.\nIn the epic, because of its length, the parts acquire their appropriate magnitude; but\n[Bekker 1456a line 15]\nin dramas the result falls far short of expectation.\nThe evidence is that those who have dramatized the entire sack of Troy, rather than treating it part by part as Euripides did, or the whole story of Niobe, rather than treating it as Aeschylus did, either fail outright or do badly in competition; even Agathon failed for this reason alone.\nBut in reversals and in simple actions, poets achieve the effects they aim at with astonishing success;\n[Bekker 1456a line 20]\nfor this is both tragic and satisfying to human feeling.\nThis happens when a clever but wicked man is deceived, as Sisyphus was, or when a brave but unjust man is defeated.\nThis is also probable, as Agathon says, since it is probable that many things should happen\n[Bekker 1456a line 25]\ncontrary to probability.\nThe chorus must also be regarded as one of the actors; it should be a part of the whole and participate in the action, not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles.\nIn the other poets, the choral songs belong no more to the plot than to some other tragedy. That is why their choruses sing inserted songs, a practice of this kind first introduced\n[Bekker 1456a line 30]\nby Agathon. Yet what difference is there between singing inserted songs and fitting a speech from one play into another, or even an entire episode?\n\n### Chapter 19\n\nThe other kinds have now been discussed; it remains to speak about language and thought.\nWhat concerns thought should be treated\n[Bekker 1456a line 35]\nin the work on rhetoric, since it belongs more properly to that field of inquiry.\nThought includes everything that must be produced through speech.\nIts parts are demonstrating and refuting, arousing emotions—such as\n[Bekker 1456b]\n[Bekker 1456b line 1]\npity, fear, anger, and all emotions of that kind—and, in addition, producing impressions of greatness and smallness.\nIt is clear that in the events themselves one must also use the same forms of thought whenever it is necessary to produce effects that are pitiable, terrible, great, or probable.\nThe only difference\n[Bekker 1456b line 5]\nis that some things must appear without verbal explanation, while others must be produced in the speech by the speaker and arise as a result of the speech. For what would the speaker’s task be if the required effect appeared by itself and not through the speech?\nOf the matters concerning language, one field of study is the forms of expression,\n[Bekker 1456b line 10]\nknowledge of which belongs to the art of delivery and to anyone who possesses expert command of that art—for example, what a command is, what a prayer is, and what narration, threat, question, answer, and anything else of that sort are.\nKnowledge or ignorance of these things brings no criticism upon poetry that is worthy\n[Bekker 1456b line 15]\nof serious attention. For who could suppose there is an error in what Protagoras criticizes, when he says that, while intending to pray, Homer gives a command in the words, “Sing, goddess, of the wrath”?\nFor telling someone to do or not to do something, he says, is a command.\nWe may therefore leave this issue aside, since it belongs to another field of study and not to poetry.\n\n### Chapter 20\n\n[Bekker 1456b line 20]\nThe parts of language as a whole are these: letter, syllable, conjunction, noun, verb, article, inflection, and statement.\nA letter is an indivisible sound—not every indivisible sound, but one from which a compound sound can naturally be formed. Animals also make indivisible sounds, none of which I call a letter.\nThe divisions of the letter\n[Bekker 1456b line 25]\nare vowel, semivowel, and mute. A vowel is a letter that has an audible sound without contact of the speech organs; a semivowel is a letter that has an audible sound with such contact, such as S and R; and a mute is a letter that, with such contact, has no sound by itself, but becomes audible when combined\n[Bekker 1456b line 30]\nwith letters that have some sound, such as G and D.\nThese differ according to the shapes and positions of the mouth, aspiration and lack of aspiration, length and shortness, and also acute, grave, and intermediate pitch. The detailed study of these belongs to metrics.\nA syllable\n[Bekker 1456b line 35]\nis a compound sound without meaning, made up of a mute and a letter that has sound. Thus GR without A is †a syllable, and† so is GR with A, as in GRA. But the study of the differences among these also belongs to metrics.\nA conjunction is a sound without meaning that neither prevents nor produces a single meaningful sound naturally composed of several sounds, and that can be placed both at the ends and in the middle, though it is not fitting for it to stand by itself at the beginning of a statement—for example, “indeed,” “surely,” and “but.” Or it is a sound without meaning that, from several\n[Bekker 1457a]\n[Bekker 1457a line 1]\nsounds, neither prevents nor produces a single meaningful sound naturally composed of them, and can be placed both at the ends and in the middle, though it is not fitting for it to stand by itself at the beginning of a statement—for example, “indeed,” “surely,” and “but.” Or it is a sound without meaning that naturally forms one meaningful sound out of several sounds,\n[Bekker 1457a line 5]\neach of which is meaningful.\nAn article is a sound without meaning that indicates the beginning, end, or division of a statement—for example, “around,” “about,” and the others. Or it is a sound without meaning that neither prevents nor produces a single meaningful sound out of several sounds and that can naturally be placed\n[Bekker 1457a line 10]\nboth at the ends and in the middle.\nA noun is a compound sound with meaning, without reference to time, no part of which has meaning by itself. In compound nouns, we do not use a part as though it also had meaning by itself; for example, in “Theodore,” the element “dore” has no meaning.\nA verb is a compound sound with meaning and with reference\n[Bekker 1457a line 15]\nto time, no part of which has meaning by itself, just as with nouns. For “man” or “white” does not indicate when, but “walks” and “has walked” additionally indicate time, the former the present and the latter the past.\nAn inflection is a form of a noun or verb: one kind signifies “of this” or “to this”\n[Bekker 1457a line 20]\nand other such relations; another signifies one or many, as in “men” or “man”; and another corresponds to forms of delivery, such as a question or command. Thus “Did he walk?” and “Walk!” are inflections of a verb according to these forms.\nA statement is a compound sound with meaning, some parts of which have meaning by themselves.\nFor not every statement is composed of verbs and nouns—the definition\n[Bekker 1457a line 25]\nof man, for example—but a statement can exist without verbs; nevertheless, it will always have some part that has meaning. In “Cleon walks,” for example, “Cleon” is such a part.\nA statement is one in two ways: either because it signifies one thing, or because several parts are joined by conjunction. Thus the Iliad is one\n[Bekker 1457a line 30]\nby conjunction, while the definition of man is one because it signifies one thing.\n\n### Chapter 21\n\nOf nouns, one kind is simple—and by simple I mean one that is not composed of meaningful parts, such as “earth”—and another is compound.\nOf the latter, one kind is composed of a meaningful and a meaningless part, though these parts are not meaningful and meaningless within the\n[Bekker 1457a line 33a]\nnoun itself, while another is composed of meaningful parts.\nThere may also be triple, quadruple, and\n[Bekker 1457a line 35]\nmultiple nouns, like many of the Massaliot names,\n[Bekker 1457b]\n[Bekker 1457b line 1]\n“Her-mocaico-xanthus”...\nEvery noun is either ordinary, a foreign word, a metaphor, an ornament, a coined word, an extended word, a shortened word, or an altered word.\nBy an ordinary word I mean one used by a particular people,\nand by a foreign word one used by another people. It is therefore clear that the same word can be both\n[Bekker 1457b line 5]\nforeign and ordinary, though not for the same people: “sigynon” is an ordinary word among the Cypriots, but a foreign word for us.\nA metaphor is the application of a word belonging to something else, either from genus to species, from species to genus, from species to species, or by analogy.\nBy transfer from genus to\n[Bekker 1457b line 10]\nspecies I mean, for example, “Here stands my ship,” since lying at anchor is a kind of standing.\nFrom species to genus: “Indeed, Odysseus has done ten thousand noble deeds,” since ten thousand is a great number, and here the poet has used it in place of “many.”\nFrom species to species, for example, “drawing off his life with bronze” and “cutting with long-edged bronze.” Here\n[Bekker 1457b line 15]\nhe has called drawing off “cutting” and cutting “drawing off,” since both are kinds of taking something away.\nBy analogy I mean when the second stands in the same relation to the first as the fourth does to the third; the poet will then use the fourth in place of the second, or the second in place of the fourth.\nSometimes they also add to the substituted word the term to which the replaced word\n[Bekker 1457b line 20]\nbelongs. I mean, for example, that a cup stands in the same relation to Dionysus as a shield does to Ares. The poet will therefore call the cup “Dionysus’s shield” and the shield “Ares’s cup.”\nOr old age stands to life as evening stands to day. The poet will therefore call evening “the old age of day,” or, as\n[Bekker 1457b line 25]\nEmpedocles does, old age “the evening of life” or “the sunset of life.”\nIn some analogies, one of the corresponding terms has no established name, but the expression can nevertheless be formed in the same way. For example, casting seed is called sowing, but the sun’s casting of its flame has no name. Yet this action stands in the same relation to the sun as sowing does to seed, and so the phrase has been used, “sowing the god-created\n[Bekker 1457b line 30]\nflame.”\nThis kind of metaphor can also be used in another way: after applying the alien term, one may deny one of the attributes proper to it.\nFor example, one might call the shield not “Ares’s cup,” but “a wineless cup”...\nA coined word is one that has not been used at all by anyone else but is introduced by the poet himself. Some words seem to be of this kind, such as\n[Bekker 1457b line 35]\n“shoots” for horns and “prayer” for priest.\nAn extended\n[Bekker 1458a]\n[Bekker 1458a line 1]\nor shortened word is such that the former either uses a longer vowel than the word normally has or has a syllable inserted, while the latter has had something removed from it.\nExamples of extension are “polēos” for “poleōs” and “Pēlēïadeō” for “Pēleidou”; examples of shortening are\n[Bekker 1458a line 5]\n“kri” and “dō,” and “the appearance of both becomes one.”\nAn altered word is one in which the poet retains one part of the word being named but invents another, as in “the rightward breast” instead of “the right breast.”\nOf nouns themselves, some are masculine, some feminine, and some intermediate.\nMasculine nouns are those ending in N, R, and S,\n[Bekker 1458a line 10]\nand in letters composed with S; there are two of these, PS and X. Feminine nouns are those ending in vowels that are always long,\nsuch as Ē and Ō, and, among vowels that can be lengthened, in A.\nIt follows that masculine and feminine nouns end in an equal number of letters, since PS and X are compound letters.\nNo noun ends in a mute consonant or in\n[Bekker 1458a line 15]\na short vowel.\nOnly three end in I: “meli,” “kommi,” and “peperi.” Five end in Y. Intermediate nouns end in these vowels and in N and S.\n\n### Chapter 22\n\nThe excellence of diction is to be clear without being commonplace.\nDiction composed of ordinary words is certainly the clearest, but\n[Bekker 1458a line 20]\nit is commonplace; examples are the poetry of Cleophon and that of Sthenelus.\nDiction that uses unfamiliar words is elevated and departs from everyday usage. By unfamiliar words I mean foreign words, metaphor, extension, and everything that departs from the ordinary word.\nBut if someone makes everything of this kind, the result will be either a riddle or\n[Bekker 1458a line 25]\ngibberish: if it is composed of metaphors, a riddle; if of foreign words, gibberish.\nFor the essence of a riddle is to connect real things while saying what is impossible. This cannot be done by combining other kinds of words, but it can be done through metaphors, for example, “I saw a man welding bronze with fire\n[Bekker 1458a line 30]\nonto a man,” and similar expressions.\nCompositions made from foreign words are gibberish.\nDiction must therefore be blended with these elements in some way. The foreign word, metaphor, ornament, and the other kinds already mentioned\n[Bekker 1458a line 34]\nwill prevent it from being everyday and commonplace, while the ordinary word will provide clarity.\nNo small contribution\n[Bekker 1458b]\n[Bekker 1458b line 1]\nto making diction clear without being everyday is made by extensions, shortenings, and alterations of words. Because a form differs from the ordinary word and departs from customary usage, it will keep the diction from being everyday; but because it\n[Bekker 1458b line 5]\nshares something with customary usage, it will be clear.\nThose who criticize this form of speech and ridicule the poet are therefore wrong. One example is the elder Euclides, who said that it would be easy to write poetry if one were allowed to lengthen words as much as one pleased, and who composed iambic lines in the diction itself: “I saw Epichares\n[Bekker 1458b line 10]\nwalking to Marathon,” and “I would not, † having honored †, take his hellebore.”\nTo appear to use this device deliberately is certainly ridiculous; but moderation is a requirement common to all the parts of diction.\nFor someone who used metaphors, foreign words, and the other kinds inappropriately and deliberately for comic effect\n[Bekker 1458b line 15]\nwould produce the same result.\nHow great a difference appropriate usage makes can be seen in epic verse by substituting ordinary words into the meter.\nWith foreign words, metaphors, and the other forms as well, anyone who substitutes the ordinary words can see that what we say is true. For example, Aeschylus and Euripides composed\n[Bekker 1458b line 20]\nthe same iambic line, but Euripides changed just one word, substituting a foreign word for the customary ordinary one, so that one line appears beautiful and the other cheap. Aeschylus wrote in his Philoctetes, “An ulcer that eats the flesh of my foot,”\nbut Euripides substituted “feasts on” for “eats.” And\n[Bekker 1458b line 25]\n“Now, being small and worthless and unsightly,”\nwould become, if someone substituted the ordinary words, “Now, being little and weak and ugly.”\nAnd instead of “setting down an unseemly seat and a scanty table,”\n[Bekker 1458b line 30]\n“setting down a wretched seat and a little table.”\nAnd instead of “the shores resound,” “the shores cry out.”\nAriphrades also ridiculed the tragedians because they use forms that no one would use in ordinary speech, such as “from the house away” rather than “away from the house,” “of you,” “and I him,” and\n[Bekker 1459a]\n[Bekker 1459a line 1]\n“Achilles about” rather than “about Achilles,” and all other expressions of this kind.\nBecause they are not among the ordinary forms, all such expressions keep diction from being everyday; but Ariphrades failed to understand this.\nIt is important to use each of the kinds already mentioned\n[Bekker 1459a line 5]\nappropriately, including compound words and foreign words, but by far the greatest thing is to be skilled in metaphor.\nThis alone cannot be learned from someone else, and it is a sign of natural talent, since to make metaphors well is to perceive similarities.\nAmong nouns, compound words are especially appropriate to dithyrambs,\n[Bekker 1459a line 10]\nforeign words to heroic verse, and metaphors to iambic verse.\nIn heroic verse all the kinds already mentioned are useful, but because iambic verse imitates speech as closely as possible, the appropriate nouns are those that one might also use in prose: the ordinary word, metaphor, and ornament.\n[Bekker 1459a line 15]\nLet what has been said suffice, then, concerning tragedy and imitation through action.\n\n### Chapter 23\n\nAs for narrative imitation in meter, it is clear that the plots, just as in tragedies, must be constructed dramatically and around a single action that is whole and complete,\n[Bekker 1459a line 20]\nwith a beginning, middle, and end, so that, like a single whole living creature, it may produce its proper pleasure.\nTheir structures must not resemble histories, in which it is necessary to present not a single action but a single period of time—everything that happened during it to one or more people, each event related to the others only as chance determined.\nFor just\n[Bekker 1459a line 25]\nas the naval battle at Salamis and the Carthaginians’ battle in Sicily occurred during the same period without contributing to the same end, so too, in successive periods, one event sometimes happens after another without any single end resulting from them.\nYet nearly all poets\n[Bekker 1459a line 30]\ndo this.\nTherefore, as we have already said, Homer may appear inspired in this respect also, in comparison with the others, because he did not attempt to make the entire war his subject, although it had a beginning and an end. The plot would have been excessively large and not readily grasped as a whole; or, if he had limited its scale, it would have been overly complicated by its variety.\n[Bekker 1459a line 35]\nInstead, he selected one part and used many of the other events as episodes, such as the Catalogue of Ships and other episodes with which he diversifies the poem.\nThe other poets, however, write about one man,\n[Bekker 1459b]\n[Bekker 1459b line 1]\none period of time, and one action with many parts, as did the authors of the Cypria and the Little Iliad.\nConsequently, only one tragedy, or at most two, can be made from each of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but many can be made from the Cypria and from the Little\n[Bekker 1459b line 5]\nIliad.\n\n### Chapter 24\n\nFurthermore, epic poetry must have the same kinds as tragedy: it must be either simple, complex, character-based, or\n[Bekker 1459b line 10]\ncentered on suffering.\nIts parts also are the same, apart from song and spectacle, for it too requires reversals, recognitions, and scenes of suffering; furthermore, its thought and diction must be good.\nHomer was the first to use all these elements, and he used them adequately. Each of his poems is constructed accordingly: the Iliad is simple\n[Bekker 1459b line 15]\nand centered on suffering, while the Odyssey is complex—for recognition runs throughout it—and character-based. In addition, he has surpassed everyone in diction and thought.\nEpic poetry differs from tragedy in the length of its structure and in its meter.\nFor length, the limit already stated is adequate: one must be able to take in the beginning\n[Bekker 1459b line 20]\nand the end together. This would be possible if epic structures were shorter than those of the ancient poets but extended to the length of the number of tragedies presented at a single performance.\nEpic poetry has a distinctive and considerable capacity for extending its length, because in tragedy it is impossible to imitate many parts of the action occurring\n[Bekker 1459b line 25]\nsimultaneously, but only the part performed onstage by the actors; in epic poetry, however, because it is narrative, many parts can be represented as taking place simultaneously, and if they are relevant, they increase the poem’s bulk.\nThus epic has this advantage in producing grandeur, varying the experience of the\n[Bekker 1459b line 30]\nlistener, and introducing diverse episodes; for sameness quickly produces satiety and causes tragedies to fail.\nExperience has shown that the heroic meter is appropriate. If someone were to compose a narrative imitation in some other meter, or in several meters, it would clearly be inappropriate.\nFor the heroic meter is the most stately and weighty\n[Bekker 1459b line 35]\nof the meters, which is why it admits foreign words and metaphors more readily than any other; narrative imitation is itself more elevated than the others.\nThe iambic and the tetrameter,\n[Bekker 1460a]\n[Bekker 1460a line 1]\nby contrast, are meters of movement: the latter is suited to dancing and the former to action.\nIt would be still more out of place if someone mixed them, as Chaeremon did.\nThat is why no one has composed a long structure in any meter other than the heroic. As we have said, nature itself teaches us to choose the meter appropriate to it.\n[Bekker 1460a line 5]\nHomer deserves praise for many other things, and especially because he alone among poets understands what the poet himself should do.\nThe poet himself should say as little as possible, since it is not by speaking in his own person that he is an imitator. Other poets perform in their own person throughout and imitate only a few things, and only occasionally. Homer, after a brief\n[Bekker 1460a line 10]\nintroduction, immediately brings in a man, a woman, or some other character, and no one without character, but always someone possessing character.\nThe marvelous should certainly be produced in tragedies, but the irrational, which is the chief source of the marvelous, is more admissible in\n[Bekker 1460a line 13]\nepic poetry because the person acting is not visible.\nFor the circumstances surrounding\n[Bekker 1460a line 15]\nthe pursuit of Hector would appear ridiculous onstage: the others standing still and not joining the pursuit, while Achilles signals them not to; but in epic verse the absurdity passes unnoticed.\nThe marvelous is pleasurable. The proof is that everyone adds to a story when recounting it, in the belief that this pleases the audience.\nHomer above all has taught the other poets how to tell falsehoods properly.\n[Bekker 1460a line 20]\nThe method is a false inference. People suppose that when, if one thing exists or occurs, another exists or occurs, then if the later thing exists, the earlier thing must also exist or occur. But this is false. Therefore, if the first thing is false, but if it existed something else would necessarily exist or occur, the poet should add that second thing. Because we know that the second thing is true,\n[Bekker 1460a line 25]\nour minds falsely infer that the first is also true. An example is the episode from the Washing Scene.\nOne should prefer probable impossibilities to implausible possibilities.\nPlots should not be constructed from irrational parts. Ideally, they should contain nothing irrational; but if they do, it should lie outside the action represented in the plot, as with Oedipus’s ignorance of how Laius died, and not within the drama, as with those who report the Pythian Games in the Electra, or the mute man who comes from Tegea to Mysia in the Mysians.\n[Bekker 1460a line 30]\nThus it is ridiculous to say that otherwise the plot would be destroyed, since such plots should not be constructed in the first place. † But if the poet does introduce an irrationality, and it appears that it could occur with greater plausibility, then even an absurdity may be admitted. †\nFor it would be\n[Bekker 1460a line 35]\nclear that the irrational circumstances surrounding Odysseus’s exposure in the Odyssey would not have been tolerable\n[Bekker 1460b]\n[Bekker 1460b line 1]\nif an inferior poet had composed them. As it is, however, the poet uses his other excellences to conceal the absurdity by making it pleasurable.\nDiction should be worked out most carefully in the inactive portions that display neither character nor thought, since excessively brilliant\n[Bekker 1460b line 5]\ndiction in turn obscures both character and thought.\n\n### Chapter 25\n\nAs for problems and their solutions—how many kinds there are and what they are—the matter would become clear if considered in the following way.\nSince the poet is a maker of representations, just like a painter or any other maker of images, he must always represent one of the\n[Bekker 1460b line 10]\nthree possibilities: either things as they were or are, things as people say and believe they are, or things as they ought to be.\nThese things are expressed in language that includes rare words, metaphors, and many modifications of language;\nfor we allow poets these devices. Besides this, correctness is not the same in politics and in poetry, or in any\n[Bekker 1460b line 15]\nother art and in poetry.\nWithin poetry itself, error is of two kinds: one is intrinsic to it, and the other is incidental.\nFor if the poet undertook the representation... but lacked the ability, the error belongs to poetry itself; but if the choice was incorrect—for example, representing a horse advancing both right legs at once—or if the error concerns some particular art,\n[Bekker 1460b line 20]\nsuch as medicine or any other art whatever, it is not intrinsic to poetry.\nAccordingly, criticisms raised in problems must be examined and resolved on the basis of these distinctions. First, those directed against the art itself: something impossible has been represented, and that is an error;\nbut it is correct if it achieves the end of the art itself—for the\n[Bekker 1460b line 25]\nend has been stated—if in this way it makes either that part itself or some other part more astonishing. An example is the pursuit of Hector.\nIf, however, the end could have been achieved better, or no less well, in accordance with the relevant art, then it is not correct; for wherever possible, there ought to be no error at all.\nFurthermore, to which class does the\n[Bekker 1460b line 30]\nerror belong: errors against the art itself, or errors incidental to it because they concern something else? For it is a lesser error not to know that a female deer has no antlers than to represent one in an inimitable way.\nBesides these points, if something is criticized for not being true, the solution may be that it is perhaps as it ought to be, just as Sophocles said that he himself represented people as they ought to be, while Euripides represented them as they are. That is\n[Bekker 1460b line 35]\nhow the problem should be resolved.\nBut if it is neither as it ought to be nor as it is, the solution may be that this is what people say, as with stories about the gods;\nfor perhaps it is neither better to speak of them in this way nor true, but perhaps the matter is\n[Bekker 1461a]\n[Bekker 1461a line 1]\nas Xenophanes held; nevertheless, this is what people say.\nOther things are perhaps not better, but that was how they were—for example, what is said about the weapons: “their spears stood upright on their butt-spikes.” That was the custom then, just as it still is among the Illyrians.\nAs for whether something has been said or done well or not well,\n[Bekker 1461a line 5]\none must not consider only the deed or statement itself and ask whether it is good or bad. One must also consider the person acting or speaking, the person addressed, the time, the means, and the purpose—for example, whether it was done to bring about a greater good or to prevent a greater evil.\nSome problems must be resolved by looking at the\n[Bekker 1461a line 10]\nlanguage. For example, a rare word may explain “the mules first”: perhaps he does not mean the mules but the guards. And concerning Dolon, “who was indeed bad in appearance,” he does not mean that his body was misshapen but that his face was ugly, since the Cretans use “well-formed” to mean “handsome-faced.” Likewise, “mix it\n[Bekker 1461a line 15]\nstronger” does not mean “undiluted,” as though for drunkards, but “faster.”\nAnother expression is metaphorical. For example, “Now all the gods and men slept throughout the night,” though at the same time he says, “Indeed, whenever he looked out over the Trojan plain, he marveled at the noise of flutes and pipes.” Here “all” is used metaphorically instead of “many,”\n[Bekker 1461a line 20]\nsince the whole is a kind of multitude. “She alone had no share” is also metaphorical, since what is best known is called the only one.\nSome problems are resolved by accentuation, as Hippias of Thasos resolved “we grant him the glory of attaining his prayer” and “one part of which does not rot in the rain.”\nOthers are resolved by division, as in Empedocles: “At once mortal things grew that previously had learned to be immortal, and things previously unmixed were mixed.”\n[Bekker 1461a line 25]\nOthers are resolved by ambiguity: “More of the night has passed,” since “more” is ambiguous.\nOthers are resolved by customary usage. People call mixed wine “wine,” which gives rise to “a greave of newly wrought tin”; and they call those who work iron “bronzesmiths,” which gives rise to the statement that\n[Bekker 1461a line 30]\nGanymede pours wine for Zeus, though the gods do not drink wine. This, however, might also be metaphorical.\nWhenever a word seems to signify a contradiction, one must examine how many meanings it could have in the passage. For example, in “there the bronze spear was stopped,” one must ask in how many ways “being stopped there” is possible:\nin this way or in that way, according to\n[Bekker 1461a line 35]\nthe interpretation one would most naturally adopt—by taking the directly opposite meaning;\nor, as\n[Bekker 1461b]\n[Bekker 1461b line 1]\nGlaucon says, some people first make an unreasonable assumption, then pass judgment on it themselves and draw conclusions from it; and they criticize the poet as though he had said what they merely think he said, if it conflicts with their own belief.\nThis has happened in the case of Icarius. People suppose that he was a Spartan;\n[Bekker 1461b line 5]\ntherefore they find it strange that Telemachus did not meet him when he went to Sparta. But perhaps the matter is as the Cephallenians say: they claim that Odysseus married among them and that the name was Icadius, not Icarius; and the problem is probably † due to an error †.\nIn general, what is impossible must be referred either to the requirements of\n[Bekker 1461b line 10]\npoetry, to what is better, or to accepted belief.\nFor the purposes of poetry, a convincing impossibility is preferable to something unconvincing but possible;\n... for people to be such as Zeuxis painted them, but it is better; for the model ought to surpass reality.\nAs for things alleged to be irrational: they must be dealt with in this way, and also by pointing out that sometimes they are not irrational;\n[Bekker 1461b line 15]\nfor it is likely that unlikely things will happen.\nStatements that appear contradictory must be examined in the same way as refutations in argument: whether the same thing is asserted, in relation to the same thing, and in the same sense. Accordingly, one must consider either what † he himself † says or what a sensible person would assume.\nCriticism for irrationality and badness is justified when, without any\n[Bekker 1461b line 20]\nnecessity, the poet makes use of the irrational, as Euripides does with Aegeus, or of badness, as he does with the character of Menelaus in the Orestes.\nCriticisms, then, are made on the basis of five kinds of fault: things are called impossible, irrational, harmful, contradictory, or contrary to technical correctness. The solutions must be sought among the\n[Bekker 1461b line 25]\ndistinctions already stated. There are twelve of them.\n\n### Chapter 26\n\nSomeone might raise the question whether epic representation or tragic representation is superior.\nFor if the less vulgar art is superior, and such an art is always addressed to a superior audience, it is perfectly clear that the art that represents everything through gesture is vulgar;\nfor the performers act as though the audience would not understand unless they themselves added something, and so they make exaggerated movements,\n[Bekker 1461b line 30]\nlike bad flute players who roll around when they have to represent a discus, and drag the chorus leader when they play Scylla.\nTragedy, then, is said to be like this, just as earlier actors regarded their successors. Mynniscus called Callippides an ape because he grossly overacted,\n[Bekker 1461b line 35]\nand there was a similar opinion of\n[Bekker 1462a]\n[Bekker 1462a line 1]\nPindarus. As these later actors stand in relation to the earlier ones, so the entire art of tragedy stands in relation to epic.\nEpic, then, is said to be addressed to refined spectators, who have no need of gestures, while tragedy is addressed to inferior spectators. If tragedy is vulgar, it would obviously be worse.\nFirst,\n[Bekker 1462a line 5]\nthis criticism applies not to the poetic art but to the art of acting, since it is possible to overdo gestures even while reciting epic poetry, as Sosistratus did, and while singing, as Mnasitheus of Opus did.\nSecond, not every kind of movement should be rejected, unless dancing is also to be rejected, but only the movement of inferior performers. This was the criticism made of Callippides, and is now\n[Bekker 1462a line 10]\nmade of others, on the ground that they imitate women who are not freeborn.\nFurthermore, tragedy achieves its proper effect even without movement, just as epic does; for its quality is evident through reading. Therefore, if it is superior in other respects, movement need not be an essential part of it.\nNext, tragedy has everything that epic has\n(for it can even use epic\n[Bekker 1462a line 15]\nmeter), and in addition it has music, which is no small part of it and through which its pleasures are produced most vividly.\nNext, it possesses vividness both in reading and in performance.\nFurthermore, the end of the representation is\n[Bekker 1462b]\n[Bekker 1462b line 1]\nachieved in a shorter length—for what is more concentrated is more pleasant than what is diluted over a long period of time. I mean, for example, what would happen if someone expanded Sophocles’ Oedipus into as many verses as the Iliad.\nFurthermore, the representation made by epic poets has less unity. The evidence is that multiple\n[Bekker 1462b line 5]\ntragedies can be made from any one epic representation. Consequently, if epic poets construct a single plot, it will either appear truncated when presented briefly or diluted when extended to the normal length of the meter. I mean, for example, if it is composed of several actions,\nas the Iliad has many such parts, and so does the Odyssey—parts that also possess\n[Bekker 1462b line 10]\nmagnitude in themselves. And yet these poems are constructed as well as possible and are, to the greatest possible extent, representations of a single action.\nIf, then, tragedy surpasses epic in all these respects, and also in fulfilling the function of the art—for they must produce not just any pleasure but the pleasure already specified—it is clear that tragedy would be superior because it achieves the\n[Bekker 1462b line 15]\nend more fully than epic.\nSo much, then, may be said about tragedy and epic, about the arts themselves and their kinds and parts, how many there are and how they differ, what causes success or failure, and about criticisms and their solutions....","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/poetics/translations/trn_poetics_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/poetics/retex.md"}}