The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (246 page)

18
     (4) There is a further point to be borne in mind. 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, forming the Complication; and the rest the Dénouement.
(25)
By Complication I mean all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the change in the hero’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 presupposed incidents,
(30)
the seizure of the child and that in turn of the parents; and the Dénouement all from the indictment for the murder to the end.
[1456a7]
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.
[1455b32]
(5) There are four distinct species of Tragedy—that being the number of the constituents also that have been mentioned:
³⁵
first, the complex Tragedy, which is all Peripety and Discovery; second, the Tragedy of suffering, e. g. the
Ajaxes
and
Ixions
; third, the Tragedy of character, e. g.
The Phthiotides
³⁶
and
Peleus
³⁷
The fourth constituent is that of ‘Spectacle’, exemplified in
The Phorcides
,
³⁸
in
Prometheus
,
³⁹
and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether world.
[1456a]
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 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,
(5)
the critics now expect the one man to surpass that which was the strong point of each one of his predecessors. (6) One should also remember what has been said more than once,
⁴⁰
(10)
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 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,
(15)
and
not part by part, like Euripides, of the whole of the Niobe story, instead of a portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have but ill success on the stage; for that and that alone was enough to ruin even a play by Agathon. Yet in their Peripeties, as also in their simple plots,
(20)
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 improbabilities coming to pass.
(25)
(7) 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 intercalary pieces,
(30)
a practice first introduced by Agathon. And yet what real difference is there between singing such intercalary 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,
(35)
we may assume what is said of it in our Art of Rhetoric,
⁴¹
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 every effort to prove or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or to maximize or minimize things.
[1456b]
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,
(5)
or to have a look of importance or probability. The only difference is that with the act the impression has to be made without 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 says?

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,
(10)
simple statement and threat, question and answer, and so forth. The theory of such matters, however, belongs to Elocution and the professors of that art. Whether the poet knows these things or not, his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that account.
(15)
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, 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 Letter (or ultimate element),
(20)
the Syllable, the Conjunction, the Article, the Noun, the Verb, the Case, and the Speech. (1) The Letter is an indivisible sound of a particular kind, one that may become a factor in an intelligible 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, semi-vowels,
(25)
or mutes. A vowel is a Letter having an audible sound without the addition of another Letter. A semi-vowel, 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.
(30)
G and D. The Letters differ in various ways: as produced by different conformations or in different regions of the mouth; as aspirated, not aspirated, or sometimes one and sometimes the other; 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 metricians. (2) A Syllable is a non-significant composite sound,
(35)
made up of a mute and a Letter having a sound (a vowel or semi-vowel); for GR, without an A, is just as much a Syllable as GRA, with an A. The various forms of the Syllable also belong to the theory of metre.
[1457a]
(3) A Conjunction is (
a
) a non-significant sound which, when one significant sound is formable out of several, neither hinders nor aids the union, and which, if the Speech thus formed stands by itself (apart from other Speeches), must not be inserted at the beginning of it; e. g.
. Or (
b
) a non-significant sound capable of combining two or more significant sounds into one; e. g.
&c.
(5)
(4) An Article is a non-significant sound marking the beginning, end, or dividing-point of a Speech, its natural place being either at the extremities or in the middle. (5) A Noun or name is a composite significant sound not involving the idea of time,
(10)
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
means nothing to us. (6) A Verb is a composite significant sound involving the idea of time, with parts which (just as in the Noun) have no significance by themselves in it.
(15)
Whereas the word ‘man’ or ‘white’ does not imply
when
, ‘walks’ and ‘has walked,’ involve in addition to the idea of walking that of time present or time past. (7) A Case of a Noun or Verb is when the word means ‘of’ or ‘to’ a thing,
(20)
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, &c. ‘Walked?’ and ‘Walk!’ are Cases of the verb ‘to walk’ of this last kind. (8) A Speech is a composite significant sound, some of the parts of which have a certain significance by themselves. It may be observed that a Speech is not always made up of Noun and Verb; it may be without a Verb,
(25)
like the definition of man; but it will always have some part with a certain significance by itself. In the Speech ‘Cleon walks’, ‘Cleon’ is an instance of such a part. A Speech is said to be one in two ways, either as signifying one thing, or as a union of several Speeches made into one by conjunction. Thus the
Illiad
is one Speech by conjunction of several; and the definition of man is one through its signifying one thing.
(30)

21
     Nouns are of two kinds, either (1) simple, i. e. made up of non-significant parts, like the word
, or (2) 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),
(35)
or of two significant parts. It is possible also to have triple, quadruple, or higher compounds, like most of our amplified names; e. g. ‘Hermocaïcoxanthus’ and the like.

[1457b]
Whatever its structure, a Noun must always be either (1) the ordinary word for the thing, or (2) a strange word, or (3) a metaphor, or (4) an ornamental word, or (5) a coined word, or (6) a word lengthened out, or (7) curtailed, or (8) 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 the same word may obviously be at once strange and ordinary,
(5)
though not in reference to the same people;
, 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 from genus to species is exemplified in ‘Here stands my ship’;
⁴²
for lying at anchor is the ‘standing’ of a particular kind of thing.
(10)
That from species to genus in ‘Truly ten thousand good deeds has Ulysses wrought’,
⁴³
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’,
⁴⁴
and in ‘Severing with the enduring bronze’;
⁴⁴
where the poet uses ‘draw’ in the sense of ‘sever’ and ‘sever’ in that of ‘draw’,
(15)
both words meaning to ‘take away’ something. That from analogy is possible whenever there are four terms so related that the second (B) is to the first (A), as the fourth (D) to the third (C); for one may then metaphorically put D in lieu of B, and B in lieu of D. Now and then, too, they qualify the metaphor by adding on to it that to which the word it supplants is relative.
(20)
Thus a cup (B) is in relation to Dionysus (A) what a shield (D) is to Ares (C). The cup accordingly will be metaphorically described as the ‘shield
of Dionysus
’ (D + A), and the shield as the ‘cup
of Ares
’
⁴⁵
(B + C). Or to take another instance: As old age (D) is to life (C), so is evening (B) to day (A). One will accordingly describe evening (B) as the ‘old age
of the day
’ (D + A)—or by the Empedoclean equivalent; and old age (D) as the ‘evening’
⁴⁶
or ‘sunset
of life
’
⁴⁷
(B + C). It may be that some of the terms thus related have no special name of their own,
(25)
but for all that they will be metaphorically 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 (B), however, stands in just the same relation to its object, sunlight (A), as sowing (D) to the seed-corn (C). Hence the expression in the poet, ‘sowing around a god-created
flame
’
⁴⁸
(D + A). There is also another form of qualified metaphor.
(30)
Having given 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
’ …. 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)
for horns, and
for priest.
⁴⁹
A word is said to be lengthened out,
(35)
when it has a short vowel made long, or an extra syllable inserted; e. g.
.
[1458a]
It is said to be curtailed, when it has lost a part; e. g.
and
.
⁵⁰
It is an altered word,
(5)
when part is left as it was and part is of the poet’s making; e. g.
in
.
⁵¹