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Book I. Things, and so copiously too, that I think my self excused from repeating and copying those Things, which are under the Jurisdiction of other Arts. I will leave these Things then to the Rhetoricians, Grammarians, and to those who have writ so much about them even in Poetry it self. So that the little I have to say will be compris'd in one part. And my Unwillingness to be copious, is the Reason which obliges me to speak still less of the Poem and Versification.

But I shall write very fully of the Fable, as being the most essential part of the Epopéa. So likewise I shall concerning it a Form, and its Matter. Nay more, I shall handle distinctly the Morals of the Persons. And lastly, I shall distinguish the Gods from the Men. The Gods are usually express'd by the Name of Machines, because the Poets make use of such to let them down upon the Theatre; from whence the Epopéa has likewise borrowed the Name.

According to this Account, this Treatise will be divided into six Parts or Books.

The First will be concerning the Nature of the Epick Poem, where we shall treat of the Fable.

The Second Book will treat of the Matter, or of the Epick Action.

The Third of the Form, or the Narration.

The Fourth of the Manners and Characters of Humane Personages.

The Fifth of Machines, or of the Presence and Action of the Gods.

And the Sixth of the Thoughts and Expressions.

Poem is a Discourse in Verse; and a Verse is a part of a Discourse measur'd by a certain number of long and short Syllables, with a grateful Cadence, that is constantly repeated. This Repetition is necessary to distinguish the Notion we have of Verse, from that of Prose. For in Prose as well as Verse, every Period and Clause are so many parts of a Discourse measured by a certain number of long and short Syllables; but Prose is ever and anon altering its Cadences and Measures, which Verse never does.