Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/375

 349 flxrtlier, and admits even the improbable and incredible, from which the highest degree of the surprising results, because, there, the action is not seen. The circumstances, for example, of the pursuit of Hector by- Achilles, are such as upon the stage would appear ridiculous; — the Grecian army standing still, and taking no part in the pursuit, and Achilles making signs to them, by the motion of his head, not to inter- fere. But in the epic poem this escapes our notice. Now the wonder- ful always pleases; as is evident from the additions which men always make in relating anything, in order to gratify the hearers. It is from Homer principally that other poets have learned the art of properly nan-ating fictions. This consists in a sort of sophism. Wlien one thing is observed to be constantly followed by anotheVj men are apt to conclude, that if the latter is, or happens, the former must also be or must happen. But this is a fallacy^. The poet should prefer impossibilities which appear 2^'i^obable, to such things as, though possible, appear improbable. He should not produce a plan made up of improbable incidents, [but he should, if possible, admit no one circumstance of that kind; or, if he does, it should be exterior to the action itself, like the ignorance of (Edipus concerning the manner in which Laius died ; not within the drama, like the narra- tive of what happened at the Pythian games, in the Electra; or in The Mysians, the man who travels from Tegea to Mysia without speak- ing.] To say, that without these circumstances the fable would have been destroyed, :s a ridiculous excuse : the poet should take care, from the fii'st, not to construct his fable in that manner. If, however, any- thing of this kind has been admitted, and yet is made to pass under some colour of probability, it may be allowed, though even in itself absurd. Thus, in the Odyssey, the improbable account of the manner in which Ulysses was landed upon the shore of Ithaca is such as, in the hands of an ordinary poet, would evidently have been intolerable : but here the absurdity is concealed uuder the various beauties, of other kinds, with which the poet has embellished it. The diction should be most laboured in the idle parts of the poem — those in which neither manners nor sentiments prevail ; for the manners and the sentiments are only obscured by too splendid a diction. [* * * * *T Cap. XXV. ^ The editions here insert the following Scholium : hih S77, h.v to irpCoTov xpevSos, dXKov 5^ TovTov 6vTos, dvdyKT} ?/ ehat tj yeveadac Trpoadeivai.. Sid yap to tovto ei54vai dr]6es 6v, Trapaoyi^€Tai rjfjiQv i) ^pvxv f^^-^ "^^ irpwrov ws 6v. irapabetyfia 5^ tovto e/c tGjv KtTrrpaji'. — J. W. D. 2 Here follows a Chapter xxv., which is not in the style of Aristotle, and may safely be omitted for the reasons given by Ritter. — J. W. D.