The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  18 · Every tragedy is in part complication and in part dénouement; the incidents before the opening scene, and often certain also of those within the play, [25] forming the complication; and the rest the dénouement. By complication I mean all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the change in the subject’s fortunes; by dénouement, all from the beginning of the change to the end. In the Lynceus of Theodectes, for instance, the complication includes, together with the [30] presupposed incidents, the seizure of the child and that in turn of the parents . . . ;9 and the dénouement all from the indictment for the murder to the end. There are four distinct species of Tragedy—that being the number of the constituents also that have been mentioned: first, the complex tragedy, which is all reversal and discovery; second, the tragedy of suffering, e.g. the Ajaxes and Ixions; third, the [1456a1] tragedy of character, e.g. The Phthiotides and Peleus. The fourth constituent is that of . . .10 exemplified in The Phorcides, in Prometheus, and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether world. Now it is right, when one speaks of a tragedy as the same or not the same as another, to do so on the ground before all else of their plot, i.e. as having the same or not the same complication and dénouement. Yet there are many dramatists who, after a good complication, fail in the dénouement. But it is necessary for both points of construction to be always duly mastered. The poet’s aim, then, should be to combine every element of interest, if possible, or else the more important and the major part of them. This is now especially necessary owing [5] to the unfair criticism to which the poet is subjected in these days. Just because there have been poets before him strong in the several species of tragedy, the critics now expect the one man to surpass that which was the strong point of each one of his [10] predecessors. One should also remember what has been said more than once, and not write a tragedy on an epic body of incident (i.e. one with a plurality of stories in it), by attempting to dramatize, for instance, the entire story of the Iliad. In the epic owing to its scale every part is treated at proper length; with a drama, however, on [15] the same story the result is very disappointing. This is shown by the fact that all who have dramatized the fall of Ilium in its entirety, and not part by part, like Euripides, or the whole of the Niobe story, instead of a portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have little success on the stage; for that and that alone was enough to ruin even a play by Agathon. Yet in their reversals of fortune, as also in their simple [20] plots, the poets I mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect they desire—a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one, like the clever villain (e.g. Sisyphus) deceived, or the brave wrongdoer worsted. This is probable, however, only in Agathon’s sense, when he speaks of the probability of even [25] improbabilities coming to pass. The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and take a share in the action—that which it has in Sophocles, rather than in Euripides. With the later poets, however, the songs in a play of theirs have no more to do with the plot of that than of any other tragedy. Hence it is that they are now singing inserted pieces, a [30] practice first introduced by Agathon. And yet what real difference is there between singing such inserted pieces, and attempting to fit in a speech, or even a whole act, from one play into another?

  19 · The plot and characters having been discussed, it remains to consider the diction and thought. As for the thought, we may assume what is said of it in our [35] Art of Rhetoric, as it belongs more properly to that department of inquiry. The thought of the personages is shown in everything to be effected by their language—in [1456b1] every effort to prove or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or to maximize or minimize things. It is clear, also, that their mental procedure must be on the same lines in their actions likewise, whenever they wish them to arouse pity or horror, or to have a look of importance or probability. The only difference is that with the act the impression has to be made without [5] explanation; whereas with the spoken word it has to be produced by the speaker, and result from his language. What, indeed, would be the good of the speaker, if things appeared in the required light even apart from anything he said?

  As regards the diction, one subject for inquiry under this head is the turns given to the language when spoken; e.g. the difference between command and prayer, simple statement and threat, question and answer, and so forth. The theory of such matters, however, belongs to acting and the professors of that art. Whether [10] the poet knows these things or not, his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that account. What fault can one see in Homer’s ‘Sing of the wrath, Goddess’?— which Protagoras has criticized as being a command where a prayer was meant, [15] since to bid one do or not do, he tells us, is a command. Let us pass over this, then, as appertaining to another art, and not to that of poetry.

  20 · The diction viewed as a whole is made up of the following parts: the [20] letter, the syllable, the conjunction, the article, the noun, the verb, the case, and the speech. The letter is an indivisible sound of a particular kind, one that may become a factor in a compound sound. Indivisible sounds are uttered by the brutes also, but no one of these is a letter in our sense of the term. These elementary sounds are either vowels, semivowels, or mutes. A vowel is a letter having an audible sound [25] without the addition of another letter. A semivowel, one having an audible sound by the addition of another letter; e.g. S and R. A mute, one having no sound at all by itself, but becoming audible by an addition, that of one of the letters which have a sound of some sort of their own; e.g. G and D. The letters differ in various ways: as [30] produced by different conformations or in different regions of the mouth; as aspirated or not aspirated; as long, short, or of variable quantity; and further as having an acute, grave, or intermediate accent. The details of these matters we must leave to the students of metre. A syllable is a non-significant composite sound, made [35] up of a mute and a letter having a sound; for GR, without an A, is just as much a syllable as GRA, with an A.11 The various forms of the syllable also belong to the theory of metre. A conjunction is a non-significant sound which, when one significant sound is formable out of several, neither hinders nor aids the union, and [1457a1] which naturally stands both at the end and in the middle but must not be inserted at the beginning; e.g. μέν, or δέ. Or a non-significant sound which naturally makes one significant sound out of several significant sounds. An article is a non-significant [5] sound marking the beginning, end, or dividing-point of a sentence, its natural place being either at the extremities or in the middle. E.g. ἀμφἰ, περί etc. Or a non-significant sound which neither prevents nor makes a single significant sound out of several, and which is naturally placed both at the end and in the middle.12 A [10] noun or name is a composite significant sound not involving the idea of time, with parts which have no significance by themselves in it. It is to be remembered that in a compound we do not think of the parts as having a significance also by themselves; in the name ‘Theodorus’, for instance, the δῶρoς means nothing. A verb is a [15] composite significant sound involving the idea of time, with parts which (just as in the noun) have no significance by themselves in it. Whereas the word ‘man’ or ‘white’ does not signify a time ‘he walks’ and ‘he has walked’ involve in addition to the idea of walking that of time present or time past. A case of a noun or verb is [20] when the word means ‘of or ‘to’ a thing, and so forth, or for one or many (e.g. ‘man’ and ‘men’); or it may consist merely in the mode of utterance, e.g. in question, command, etc. ‘Did he walk’? and ‘Walk’! are cases of the verb ‘to walk’ of this last kind. A sentence is a composite significant sound, some of the parts of which have a certain significance by themselves. It may be observed that a sentence is not always [25] made up of noun and verb; it may be without a verb, like the definition of man; but it will always have some part with a certain significance by itself. In the sentence ‘Cleon walks’, ‘Cleon’ is an instance of such a part. A sentence is said to be one in t
wo ways, either as signifying one thing, or as a union of several speeches made into one by conjunction. Thus the Iliad is one speech by conjunction of several; and the [30] definition of man is one through its signifying one thing.

  21 · Nouns are of two kinds, either simple, i.e. made up of non-significant parts, like the word earth, or double; in the latter case the word may be made up either of a significant and a non-significant part (a distinction which disappears in the compound), or of two significant parts. It is possible also to have triple, quadruple, or higher compounds, like many of the names of people from Massalia: e.g. ‘Hermocaïcoxanthus’ and the like.

  [1457b1] Whatever its structure, a noun must always be either the ordinary word for the thing, or a strange word, or a metaphor, or an ornamental word, or a coined word, or a word lengthened out, or curtailed, or altered in form. By the ordinary word I mean that in general use in a country; and by a strange word, one in use elsewhere. So that [5] the same word may obviously be at once strange and ordinary, though not in reference to the same people; σίγυνoν, for instance, is an ordinary word in Cyprus, and a strange word with us. Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy. That [10] from genus to species is exemplified in ‘Here stands my ship’; for lying at anchor is a sort of standing. That from species to genus in ‘Truly ten thousand good deeds has Ulysses wrought’, where ‘ten thousand’, which is a particular large number, is put in place of the generic ‘a large number’. That from species to species in ‘Drawing the life with the bronze,’ and in ‘Severing with the enduring bronze’; where the poet [15] uses ‘draw’ in the sense of ‘sever’ and ‘sever’ in that of ‘draw’, both words meaning to ‘take away’ something. That from analogy is possible whenever there are four terms so related that the second is to the first, as the fourth to the third; for one may then put the fourth in place of the second, and the second in place of the fourth. Now and then, too, they qualify the metaphor by adding on to it that to which the word it supplants is relative. Thus a cup is in relation to Dionysus what a shield is to [20] Ares. The cup accordingly will be described as the ‘shield of Dionysus’ and the shield as the ‘cup of Ares’. Or to take another instance: As old age is to life, so is evening to day. One will accordingly describe evening as the ‘old age of the day’—or by the Empedoclean equivalent; and old age as the ‘evening’ or ‘sunset of life’. It may be that some of the terms thus related have no special name of their own, but [25] for all that they will be described in just the same way. Thus to cast forth seed-corn is called ‘sowing’; but to cast forth its flame, as said of the sun, has no special name. This nameless act, however, stands in just the same relation to its object, sunlight, as sowing to the seed-corn. Hence the expression in the poet, ‘sowing around a god-created flame’. There is also another form of qualified metaphor. Having given [30] the thing the alien name, one may by a negative addition deny of it one of the attributes naturally associated with its new name. An instance of this would be to call the shield not the ‘cup of Ares’, as in the former case, but a ‘cup that holds no wine’ .. . .13 A coined word is a name which, being quite unknown among a people, is given by the poet himself; e.g. (for there are some words that seem to be of this origin) ἔρνυγες for horns, and ἀρητἡρ for priest. A word is said to be lengthened out, [1458a1] when it has a short vowel made long, or an extra syllable inserted; e.g. πόληoς for πόλεως, Πηλιἁδεω for Πηλεἰδoυ. It is said to be curtailed, when it has lost a part; e.g. κρῖ, δῶ, and ὄψ in μἱα γἱνεται ἀμφoτέρων ὄψ. It is an altered word, when part is left as [5] it was and part is of the poet’s making; e.g. δεξιτερόν for δεξιόν, in δεξιτερὀν κατἀ μαζόν.

  The nouns themselves are either masculines, feminines, or intermediates. All ending in N, P, Σ, or in the two compounds of this last, Ψ and Ξ, are masculines. All [10] ending in the invariably long vowels, H and Ω, and in A among the vowels that may be long, are feminines. So that there is an equal number of masculine and feminine terminations, as Ψ and Ξ are the same as Σ. There is no noun, however, ending in a mute or in a short vowel. Only three (μέλι, κόμμι, πέπερι) end in I, and five in ϒ. . . .14 [15] The intermediates end in the variable vowels or in N, P, Σ.

  22 · The excellence of diction is for it to be at once clear and not mean. The clearest indeed is that made up of the ordinary words for things, but it is mean, as is shown by the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus. On the other hand the diction [20] becomes distinguished and non-prosaic by the use of unfamiliar terms, i.e. strange words, metaphors, lengthened forms, and everything that deviates from the ordinary modes of speech. But a whole statement in such terms will be either a riddle or a barbarism, a riddle, if made up of metaphors, a barbarism, if made up of [25] strange words. The very nature indeed of a riddle is this, to describe a fact in an impossible combination of words (which cannot be done with a combination of other names, but can be done with a combination of metaphors); e.g. ‘I saw a man glue brass on another with fire’, and the like. The corresponding use of strange words [30] results in a barbarism. A certain admixture, accordingly, of unfamiliar terms is necessary. These, the strange word, the metaphor, the ornamental equivalent, etc., will save the language from seeming mean and prosaic, while the ordinary words in it will secure the requisite clearness. What helps most, however, to render the [1458b1] diction at once clear and non-prosaic is the use of the lengthened, curtailed, and altered forms of words. Their deviation from the ordinary words will, by making the language unlike that in general use, give it a non-prosaic appearance; and their having much in common with the words in general use will give it the quality of [5] clearness. It is not right, then, to condemn these modes of speech, and ridicule the poet for using them, as some have done; e.g. the elder Euclid, who said it was easy to make poetry if one were to be allowed to lengthen words as much as one likes—a procedure he caricatured by reading ’Eπιχἁρην εἶδoν Mαραθῶνἁδε βαδἱζoντα, and [10] oὐκ †ἄν γερἁμενoς† τὀν ἐκεἱνoυ ἐλλέβoρoν as verses. A too apparent use of these licences has certainly a ludicrous effect, but they are not alone in that; the rule of moderation applies to all the constituents of the poetic vocabulary; even with metaphors, strange words, and the rest, the effect will be the same, if one uses them improperly and with a view of provoking laughter. The proper use of them is a very [15] different thing. To realize the difference one should take an epic verse and see how it reads when the normal words are introduced. The same should be done too with the strange word, the metaphor, and the rest; for one has only to put the ordinary words in their place to see the truth of what we are saying. The same iambic, for [20] instance, is found in Aeschylus and Euripides, and as it stands in the former it is a poor line; whereas Euripides, by the change of a single word, the substitution of a strange for what is by usage the ordinary word, has made it seem a fine one. Aeschylus having said in his Philoctetes:

  φαγέδαιναν ἥ μoυ σἁρκας ἐσθἱει πoδός,

  Euripides has merely altered the ἐσθἱει here into θoινᾶται. Or suppose

  [25] νῦν δέ μ’ ἐὠν ὀλἱγoς τε καἰ oὐτιδανὀς καἰ ἀεικἡς

  to be altered, by the substitution of the ordinary words, into

  νῦν δέ μ’ ἐὠν μικρός τε καἰ ἀσθενικὀς καἰ ἀειδἡς

  Or the line

  δἱφρoν ἀεικέλιoν καταθεἰς ὀλἱγην τε τρἁπεζαν

  into

  [30] δἱφρoν μoχθηρὀν καταθεἰς μικρἁν τε τρἁπεζαν.

  Or ἠιόνες βoόωσιν into ἠιόνες κρἁζoυσιν. Add to this that Ariphrades used to ridicule the tragedians for introducing expressions unknown in the lang
uage of common life, [1459a1] δωμἁτων ἄπo (for ἀπὀ δωμἁτων), σέθεν, ἐγὠ δέ νιν, ’Aχιλλέως πέρι (for περἰ ’Aχιλλέως), and the like. The mere fact of their not being in ordinary speech gives the diction a non-prosaic character; but Ariphrades was unaware of that. It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of these poetical forms, as also of [5] compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.