by Aristotle
Of the kinds of words we have enumerated it may be observed that compounds are most in place in the dithyramb, strange words in heroic, and metaphors in [10] iambic poetry. Heroic poetry, indeed, may avail itself of them all. But in iambic verse, which models itself as far as possible on the spoken language, only those kinds of words are in place which are allowable also in a prose speech, i.e. the ordinary word, the metaphor, and the ornamental equivalent.
Let this, then, suffice as an account of tragedy, the art imitating by means of [15] action on the stage.
23 · As for the poetry which narrates, or imitates by means of versified language, the construction of its plots should clearly be like that in a tragedy; they should be based on a single action, one that is a complete whole in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end, so as to enable the work to produce its own proper [20] pleasure with all the organic unity of a living creature. Nor should one suppose that there is anything like them in our usual histories. A history has to deal not with one action, but with one period and all that happened in that to one or more persons, however disconnected the several events may have been. Just as two events may take place at the same time, e.g. the sea-fight off Salamis and the battle with the [25] Carthaginians in Sicily, without converging to the same end, so too of two consecutive events one may sometimes come after the other with no one end as their common issue. Nevertheless most of our poets, one may say, ignore the distinction.
Herein, then, to repeat what we have said before, we have a further proof of [30] Homer’s marvellous superiority to the rest. He did not attempt to deal even with the Trojan war in its entirety, though it was a whole with a definite beginning and end—through a feeling apparently that it was too long a story to be taken in in one view, or if not that, too complicated from the variety of incident in it. As it is, he has singled out one section of the whole; many of the other incidents, however, he brings [35] in as episodes, using the Catalogue of the Ships, for instance, and other episodes to relieve the uniformity of his narrative. As for the other poets, they treat of one man, or one period; or else of an action which, although one, has a multiplicity of parts in [1459b1] it. This last is what the authors of the Cypria and Little Iliad have done. And the result is that, whereas the Iliad or Odyssey supplies materials for only one, or at most two tragedies, the Cypria does that for several and so does the Little Iliad [for [5] more than eight: for an Adjudgment of Arms, a Philoctetes, a Neoptolemus, a Eurypylus, a Ulysses as Beggar, a Laconian Women, a Fall of Ilium, and a Departure of the Fleet; as also a Sinon, and a Woman of Troy].15
24 · Besides this, epic poetry must divide into the same species as tragedy; it must be either simple or complex, a story of character or one of suffering. Its parts, too, with the exception of song and spectacle, must be the same, as it requires [10] reversals, discoveries, and scenes of suffering just like tragedy. Lastly, the thought and diction in it must be good in their way. All these elements appear in Homer first; and he has made due use of them. His two poems are each examples of [15] construction, the Iliad simple and a story of suffering, the Odyssey complex (there is discovery throughout it) and a story of character. And they are more than this, since in diction and thought too they surpass all other poems.
There is, however, a difference in the epic as compared with tragedy, in its length, and in its metre. As to its length, the limit already suggested will suffice: it must be possible for the beginning and end of the work to be taken in in one view—a [20] condition which will be fulfilled if the poem be shorter than the old epics, and about as long as the series of tragedies offered for one hearing. For the extension of its length epic poetry has a special advantage, of which it makes large use. In a play [25] one cannot represent an action with a number of parts going on simultaneously; one is limited to the part on the stage and connected with the actors. Whereas in epic poetry the narrative form makes it possible for one to describe a number of simultaneous incidents; and these, if germane to the subject, increase the body of the poem. This then is a gain to the epic, tending to give it grandeur, and also variety [30] of interest and room for episodes of diverse kinds. Uniformity of incident by the satiety it soon creates is apt to ruin tragedies on the stage. As for its metre, the heroic has been assigned it from experience; were any one to attempt a narrative poem in some one, or in several, of the other metres, the incongruity of the thing would be apparent. The heroic in fact is the gravest and weightiest of metres—which [35] is what makes it more tolerant than the rest of strange words and metaphors, that also being a point in which the narrative form of poetry goes beyond all others. The iambic and trochaic, on the other hand, are metres of movement, the one [1460a1] representing that of life and action, the other that of the dance. Still more unnatural would it appear, if one were to write an epic in a medley of metres, as Chaeremon did. Hence it is that no one has ever written a long story in any but heroic verse; the very nature of the thing, as we have said, teaches us to select the metre appropriate to such a story.
[5] Homer, admirable as he is in every other respect, is especially so in this, that he alone among epic poets is not unaware of the part to be played by the poet himself in the poem. The poet should say very little in his own character, as he is no imitator when doing that. Whereas the other poets are perpetually coming forward in person, and say but little, and that only here and there, as imitators, Homer after a [10] brief preface brings in forthwith a man, a woman, or some other character—no one of them characterless, but each with distinctive characteristics.
The marvellous is certainly required in tragedy. The epic, however, affords more opening for the improbable, the chief factor in the marvellous, because in it [15] the agents are not visibly before one. The scene of the pursuit of Hector would be ridiculous on the stage—the Greeks halting instead of pursuing him, and Achilles shaking his head to stop them; but in the poem the absurdity is overlooked. The marvellous, however, is a cause of pleasure, as is shown by the fact that we all tell a story with additions, in the belief that we are giving pleasure to our hearers.
Homer more than any other has taught the others the art of framing lies in the right way. I mean the use of paralogism. Whenever, if one thing is or happens, [20] another is or happens, men’s notion is that, if the latter is, so is the former—but that is a false conclusion. Accordingly, if the first thing is untrue, but there is something else that on the assumption of its truth follows as its consequent, the right thing then is to add on the latter. Just because we know the truth of the consequent, we are in our own minds led on to the erroneous inference of the truth of the antecedent. [25] There is an instance of this in the Bath-story in the Odyssey.
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of that sort in it. If, however, such incidents are unavoidable, they should be outside the piece, like Oedipus’ ignorance in Oedipus of the circumstances of Laius’ death; [30] not within it, like the report of the Pythian games in Electra, or the man’s having come to Mysia from Tegea without uttering a word on the way, in The Mysians. So that it is ridiculous to say that one’s plot would have been spoilt without them, since it is fundamentally wrong to make up such plots. If the poet has taken such a plot, however, and one sees that he might have put it in a more probable form, he is guilty of absurdity as well as a fault of art.16 Even in the Odyssey the improbabilities in the setting-ashore of Ulysses would be clearly intolerable in the hands of an inferior poet. As it is, the poet conceals them, his other excellences veiling their absurdity. [1460b1] Elaborate diction, however, is required only in places where there is no action, and no character or thought to be revealed. Where there is character or thought, on the other hand, an over-ornate diction tends to obscure them. [5]
25 · As regards problems and their solutions, one may see the number and nature of the assumptions on which they proceed by viewing the matter in the following way. The poet being an imita
tor just like the painter or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances represent things in one or other of three aspects, either as they were or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to [10] have been, or as they ought to be. All this he does in language, with an admixture, it may be, of strange words and metaphors, as also of the various modified forms of words, since the use of these is conceded in poetry. It is to be remembered, too, that there is not the same kind of correctness in poetry as in politics, or indeed any other art. There is, however, within the limits of poetry itself a possibility of two kinds of [15] error, the one directly, the other only accidentally connected with the art. If the poet meant to describe the thing . . .17 lack of power of expression, his art itself is at fault. But if it was through his having meant to describe it in some incorrect way (e.g. to make the horse in movement have both right legs thrown forward) that the technical error (one in a matter of, say, medicine or some other special science), [20] have got into his description, his error in that case is not in the essentials of the poetic art. These, therefore, must be the premisses of the solutions in answer to the criticisms involved in the problems.
As to the criticisms relating to the poet’s art itself. Any impossibilities there may be in his descriptions of things are faults. But from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the end of poetry itself—if (to assume what we have [25] said of that end) they make the effect of either that very portion of the work or some other portion more astounding. The Pursuit of Hector is an instance in point. If, however, the poetic end might have been as well or better or no worse attained without sacrifice of technical correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified, since the description should be, if it can, entirely free from error. One [30] may ask, too, whether the error is in a matter directly or only accidentally connected with the poetic art; since it is a lesser error in an artist not to know, for instance, that the hind has no horns, than to produce an unrecognizable picture of one.
If the poet’s description be criticized as not true to fact, one may urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described—an answer like that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were. If the description, [35] however, be neither true nor of the thing as it ought to be, the answer must be then, that it is in accordance with opinion. The tales about Gods, for instance, may be as [1461a1] wrong as Xenophanes thinks, neither true nor the better thing to say; but they are certainly in accordance with opinion. Of other statements in poetry one may perhaps say, not that they are better than the truth, but that the fact was so at the time; e.g. the description of the arms: ‘their spears stood upright, butt-end upon the ground’; for that was the usual way of fixing them then, as it is still with the [5] Illyrians. As for the question whether something said or done in a poem is right or not, in dealing with that one should consider not only the intrinsic quality of the actual word or deed, but also the person who says or does it, the person to whom he says or does it, the time, the means, and the motive of the agent—whether he does it to attain a greater good, or to avoid a greater evil.
Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the poet: by the [10] assumption of a strange word in a passage like oὐρῆας μἐν πρῶτoν, where by oὐρῆας Homer may perhaps mean not mules but sentinels. And in saying of Dolon, ὅς ῥ’ ἦ τoι εἶδoς μἐν ἔην κακός, his meaning may perhaps be, not that Dolon’s body was deformed, but that his face was ugly, as εὐειδἡς is the Cretan word for handsome-faced [15]. So, too, ζωρότερoν δἐ κέραιε may mean not ‘mix the wine stronger’, as though for topers, but ‘mix it quicker’. Other expressions in Homer may be explained as metaphorical; e.g. in πἁντες μέν ῥα θεoἱ τε καἰ ἀνέρες εὗδoν παννὑχιoι, as compared with what he tells us at the same time, ἦ τoι ὅτ’ ἐς πεδἱoν τὀ Tρωικὀν ἀθρἡσειεν, αὐλῶν συρἰγγων τε ὅμαδόν, the word πἁντες, ‘all’, is metaphorically put for ‘many’, since [20] ‘all’ is a species of ‘many’. So also his oἴη δ’ ἄμμoρoς is metaphorical, the best known standing ‘alone’. A change, as Hippias of Thasos suggested, in the mode of reading a word will solve the difficulty in δἱδoμεν δέ oἱ εὖχoς ἀρέσθαι, and in τὀ μἐν oὗ καταπὑθεται ὄμβρῳ. Other difficulties may be solved by another punctuation; e.g. in Empedocles, αἶψα δἐ θνἡτ’ ἐφὑoντo, τἀ πρἰν μἁθoν ἀθἁνατ’ εἶναι ζωρἁ τε πρἰν κἐκρητo. [25] Or by the assumption of an equivocal term, as in παρῴχηκεν δἐ πλέω νὑξ where πλέω is equivocal. Or by an appeal to the custom of language. Wine-and-water we call ‘wine’; and it is on the same principle that Homer speaks of a κνημἰς νεoτεὑκτoυ κασσιτέρoιo, a ‘greave of new-wrought tin’. A worker in iron we call a ‘brazier’; and [30] it is on the same principle that Ganymede is described as the ‘wine-server’ of Zeus, though the Gods do not drink wine. This latter, however, may be an instance of metaphor. But whenever also a word seems to imply some contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be of understanding it in the passage in question; e.g. in Homer’s τῃῥ’ ἔσχετo χἁλκεoν ἔγχoς one should consider the possible senses of ‘was stopped there’—whether by taking it in this sense or in that one will best avoid the fault of which Glaucon speaks: ‘They start with some [1461b1] improbable presumption; and having so decreed it themselves, proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement conflicts with their own notion of things’. This is how Homer’s silence about Icarius has been treated. Starting with the notion of his having been a Lacedaemonian, the critics think it strange for Telemachus not to [5] have met him when he went to Lacedaemon. Whereas the fact may have been as the Cephallenians say, that the wife of Ulysses was of a Cephallenian family, and that her father’s name was Icadius, not Icarius. So that it is probably a mistake of the critics that has given rise to the problem.18
Speaking generally, one has to justify the impossible by reference to the [10] requirements of poetry, or to the better, or to opinion. For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility; and if men such as Zeuxis depicted . . .19 the answer is that it is better they should be like that, as the artist ought to improve on his model. The improbable one has to justify either by showing it to be in accordance with opinion, or by urging that at times it is not improbable; for there is a probability of things happening also against probability. [15] The contradictions found in the poet’s language one should first test as one does an opponent’s confutation in a dialectical argument, so as to see whether he means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense, before admitting that he has contradicted either something he has said himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true. But there is no possible apology for improbability or depravity, when they are not necessary and no use is made of them, like the Euripides’ Aegeus [20] and the baseness of Menelaus in Orestes.
The objections, then, of critics start with faults of five kinds: the allegation is always that something is either impossible, improbable, corrupting, contradictory, or against technical correctness. The answers to these objections must be sought under one or other of the above-mentioned heads, which are twelve in number. [25]
26 · The question may be raised whether the epic or the tragic is the higher form of imitation. It may be argued that, if the less vulgar is the higher, and the less vulgar is always that which addresses the better public, an art addressing any and every one is of a very vulgar order. It is a belief that their public cannot see the meaning, unless they add something themselves, that causes the perpetual movements of the performers—bad flute-players, for instance, rolling about, if quoit-throwing [30] is to be represented, and pulling at the conductor, if Scylla is the
subject of the piece. Tragedy, then, is said to be an art of this order—to be in fact just what the later actors were in the eyes of their predecessors; for Mynniscus used to call Callippides ‘the ape’, because he thought he so overacted his parts; and a similar [1462a1] view was taken of Pindarus also. All tragedy, however, is said to stand to the Epic as the newer to the older school of actors. The one, accordingly, is said to address a cultivated audience, which does not need the accompaniment of gesture; the other, an uncultivated one. If, therefore, tragedy is a vulgar art, it must clearly be lower than the epic.
[5] In the first place, one may urge that the censure does not touch the art of the dramatic poet, but only that of the actor; for it is quite possible to overdo the gesturing even in an epic recital, as did Sosistratus, and in a singing contest, as did Mnasitheus of Opus. Again, one should not condemn all movement, unless one means to condemn even the dance, but only that of ignoble people—which is the [10] point of the criticism passed on Callippides and in the present day on others, that their women are not like gentlewomen. Again, tragedy may produce its effect even without movement or action in just the same way as epic poetry; for from the mere reading of a play its quality may be seen. So that, if it be superior in all other respects, this element of inferiority is no necessary part of it.