The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (245 page)

14
     The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the
play—which is the better way and shows the better poet.
[1453b]
The Plot in fact should be so framed that, even without seeing the things take place,
(5)
he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of the story in
Oedipus
would have on one. To produce this same effect by means of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid. Those, however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us that which is merely monstrous and not productive of fear,
(10)
are wholly out of touch with Tragedy; not every kind of pleasure should be required of a tragedy, but only its own proper pleasure.

The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to produce it by a work of imitation; it is clear, therefore, that the causes should be included in the incidents of his story. Let us see, then,
(15)
what kinds of incident strike one as horrible, or rather as piteous. In a deed of this description the parties must necessarily be either friends, or enemies, or indifferent to one another. Now when enemy does it on enemy, there is nothing to move us to pity either in his doing or in his meditating the deed, except so far as the actual pain of the sufferer is concerned; and the same is true when the parties are indifferent to one another. Whenever the tragic deed, however,
(20)
is done within the family—when murder or the like is done or meditated by brother on brother, by son on father, by mother on son, or son on mother—these are the situations the poet should seek after. The traditional stories, accordingly, must be kept as they are, e. g. the murder of Clytaemnestra by Orestes and of Eriphyle by Alcmeon.
(25)
At the same time even with these there is something left to the poet himself; it is for him to devise the right way of treating them. Let us explain more clearly what we mean by ‘the right way’. The deed of horror may be done by the doer knowingly and consciously, as in the old poets, and in Medea’s murder of her children in Euripides.
⁸
Or he may do it,
(30)
but in ignorance of his relationship, and discover that afterwards, as does the Oedipus in Sophocles. Here the deed is outside the play; but it may be within it, like the act of the Alcmeon in Astydamas, or that of the Telegonus in
Ulysses Wounded.
⁹
A third possibility is for one meditating some deadly injury to another,
(35)
in ignorance of his relationship, to make the discovery in time to draw back. These exhaust the possibilities, since the deed must necessarily be either done or not done, and either knowingly or unknowingly.

The worst situation is when the personage is with full knowledge on the point of doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and
also (through the absence of suffering) untragic; hence it is that no one is made to act thus except in some few instances, e. g. Haemon and Creon in
Antigone.
¹⁰
[1454a]
Next after this comes the actual perpetration of the deed meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to be done in ignorance, and the relationship discovered afterwards, since there is nothing odious in it, and the Discovery will serve to astound us. But the best of all is the last; what we have in
Cresphontes
,
¹¹
(5)
for example, where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes him in time; in
Iphigenia
, where sister and brother are in a like position; and in
Helle
,
¹²
where the son recognizes his mother, when on the point of giving her up to her enemy.

This will explain why our tragedies are restricted (as we said just now)
¹³
to such a small number of families. It was accident rather than art that led the poets in quest of subjects to embody this kind of incident in their Plots.
(10)
They are still obliged, accordingly, to have recourse to the families in which such horrors have occurred.

On the construction of the Plot, and the kind of Plot required for Tragedy, enough has now been said.
(15)

15
     In the Characters there are four points to aim at. First and foremost, that they shall be good. There will be an element of character in the play, if (as has been observed)
¹⁴
what a personage says or does reveals a certain moral purpose; and a good element of character, if the purpose so revealed is good. Such goodness is possible in every type of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an inferior,
(20)
and the other a wholly worthless being. The second point is to make them appropriate. The Character before us may be, say, manly; but it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever. The third is to make them like the reality, which is not the same as their being good and appropriate, in our sense of the term.
(25)
The fourth is to make them consistent and the same throughout; even if inconsistency be part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form of character, he should still be consistently inconsistent. We have an instance of baseness of character, not required for the story, in the Menelaus in
Orestes
; of the incongruous and unbefitting in the lamentation of Ulysses in
Scylla
,
¹⁵
and in the (clever) speech of Melanippe;
¹⁶
and of inconsistency in
Iphigenia at Aulis
,
¹⁷
(30)
where Iphigenia the suppliant is utterly unlike the later Iphigenia. The right thing, however, is in the Characters
just as in the incidents of the play to endeavour always after the necessary or the probable; so that whenever such-and-such a personage says or does such-and-such a thing,
(35)
it shall be the necessary or probable outcome of his character; and whenever this incident follows on that, it shall be either the necessary or the probable consequence of it. From this one sees (to digress for a moment) that the Dénouement also should arise out of the plot itself, and not depend on a stage-artifice, as in
Medea
,
¹⁸
or in the story of the (arrested) departure of the Greeks in the
Iliad
.
¹⁹
[1454b]
The artifice must be reserved for matters outside the play—for past events beyond human knowledge,
(5)
or events yet to come, which require to be foretold or announced; since it is the privilege of the Gods to know everything. There should be nothing improbable among the actual incidents. If it be unavoidable, however, it should be outside the tragedy, like the improbability in the
Oedipus
of Sophocles. But to return to the Characters. As Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than the ordinary man, we in our way should follow the example of good portrait-painters,
(10)
who reproduce the distinctive features of a man, and at the same time, without losing the likeness, make him handsomer than he is. The poet in like manner, in portraying men quick or slow to anger, or with similar infirmities of character, must know how to represent them as such, and at the same time as good men, as Agathon and Homer have represented Achilles.

All these rules one must keep in mind throughout,
(15)
and, further, those also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art of the poet, since in these too one may often make mistakes. Enough, however, has been said on the subject in one of our published writings.
²⁰

16
     Discovery in general has been explained already.
²¹
As for the species of Discovery,
(20)
the first to be noted is (1) the least artistic form of it, of which the poets make most use through mere lack of invention, Discovery by signs or marks. Of these signs some are congenital, like the ‘lance-head which the Earth-born have on them’,
²²
or ‘stars’, such as Carcinus brings in his
Thyestes
; others acquired after birth—these latter being either marks on the body, e. g. scars, or external tokens, like necklaces, or (to take another sort of instance) the ark in the Discovery in
Tyro.
²³
(25)
Even these, however, admit of two uses, a better and a worse; the scar of Ulysses is an instance; the Discovery of him through it is made in one way by the nurse
²⁴
and in
another by the swineherds.
²⁵
A Discovery using signs as a means of assurance is less artistic, as indeed are all such as imply reflection; whereas one bringing them in all of a sudden, as in the
Bath-story
,
²⁶
is of a better order.
(30)
Next after these are (2) Discoveries made directly by the poet; which are inartistic for that very reason; e. g. Orestes’ Discovery of himself in
Iphigenia
: whereas his sister reveals who she is by the letter,
²⁷
Orestes is made to say himself what the poet rather than the story demands.
²⁸
This,
(35)
therefore, is not far removed from the first-mentioned fault, since he might have presented certain tokens as well. Another instance is the ‘shuttle’s voice’ in the
Tereus
of Sophocles. (3) A third species is Discovery through memory, from a man’s consciousness being awakened by something seen.
[1455b]
Thus in
The Cyprioe
of Dicaeogenes, the sight of the picture makes the man burst into tears; and in the
Tale of Alcinous
,
²⁹
hearing the harper Ulysses is reminded of the past and weeps; the Discovery of them being the result. (4) A fourth kind is Discovery through reasoning; e. g. in
The Choephoroe
;
³⁰
‘One like me is here; there is no one like me but Orestes; he,
(5)
therefore, must be here.’ Or that which Polyidus the Sophist suggested for
Iphigenia
; since it was natural for Orestes to reflect: ‘My sister was sacrificed, and I am, to be sacrificed like her.’ Or that in the
Tydeus
of Theodectes: ‘I came to find a son, and am to die myself.’ Or that in
The Phinidae
:
³¹
on seeing the place the women inferred their fate,
(10)
that they were to die there, since they had also been exposed there. (5) There is, too, a composite Discovery arising from bad reasoning on the side of the other party. An instance of it is in
Ulysses the False Messenger
:
³¹
he said he should know the bow—which he had not seen; but to suppose from that that he would know it again (as though he had once seen it) was bad reasoning.
(15)
(6) The best of all Discoveries, however, is that arising from the incidents themselves, when the great surprise comes about through a probable incident, like that in the
Oedipus
of Sophocles; and also in
Iphigenia
;
³²
for it was not improbable that she should wish to have a letter taken home. These last are the only Discoveries independent of the artifice of signs and necklaces.
(20)
Next after them come Discoveries through reasoning.

17
     At the time when he is constructing his Plots, and engaged on the Diction in which they are worked out, the poet should remember (1) to put the actual scenes as far as possible before his eyes. In this
way,
(25)
seeing everything with the vividness of an eye-witness as it were, he will devise what is appropriate, and be least likely to overlook incongruities. This is shown by what was censured in Carcinus, the return of Amphiaraus from the sanctuary; it would have passed unnoticed, if it had not been actually seen by the audience; but on the stage his play failed, the incongruity of the incident offending the spectators. (2) As far as may be, too, the poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages.
(30)
Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion. (3) His story, again, whether already made or of his own making, he should first simplify and reduce to a universal form, before proceeding to lengthen it out by the insertion of episodes.
[1455b]
The following will show how the universal element in
Iphigenia
, for instance, may be viewed: A certain maiden having been offered in sacrifice, and spirited away from her sacrificers into another land,
(5)
where the custom was to sacrifice all strangers to the Goddess, she was made there the priestess of this rite. Long after that the brother of the priestess happened to come; the fact, however, of the oracle having for a certain reason bidden him go thither, and his object in going, are outside the Plot of the play. On his coming he was arrested, and about to be sacrificed, when he revealed who he was—either as Euripides puts it,
(10)
or (as suggested by Polyidus) by the not improbable exclamation, ‘So I too am doomed to be sacrificed, as my sister was’; and the disclosure led to his salvation. This done, the next thing, after the proper names have been fixed as a basis for the story, is to work in episodes or accessory incidents. One must mind, however, that the episodes are appropriate, like the fit of madness
³³
in Orestes,
(15)
which led to his arrest, and the purifying,
³⁴
which brought about his salvation. In plays, then, the episodes are short; in epic poetry they serve to lengthen out the poem. The argument of the
Odyssey
is not a long one. A certain man has been abroad many years; Poseidon is ever on the watch for him, and he is all alone.
(20)
Matters at home too have come to this, that his substance is being wasted and his son’s death plotted by suitors to his wife. Then he arrives there himself after his grievous sufferings; reveals himself, and falls on his enemies; and the end is his salvation and their death. This being
all that is proper to the
Odyssey
, everything else in it is episode.