cases occur where
it falls within the action of the play: one may cite the Alcmaeon of
Astydamas, or Telegonus in the Wounded Odysseus. Again, there is a
third case,--
not to act. The fourth case is> when some one is about to do an
irreparable deed through ignorance, and makes the discovery before it
is done. These are the only possible ways. For the deed must either be
done or not done,--and that wittingly or unwittingly. But of all these
ways, to be about to act knowing the persons, and then not to act, is the
worst. It is shocking without being tragic, for no disaster follows. It is,
therefore, never, or very rarely, found in poetry. One instance, however,
is in the Antigone, where Haemon threatens to kill Creon. The next and
better way is that the deed should be perpetrated. Still better, that it
should be perpetrated in ignorance, and the discovery made afterwards.
There is then nothing to shock us, while the discovery produces a
startling effect. The last case is the best, as when in the Cresphontes
Merope is about to slay her son, but, recognising who he is, spares his
life. So in the Iphigenia, the sister recognises the brother just in time.
Again in the Helle, the son recognises the mother when on the point of
giving her up. This, then, is why a few families only, as has been
already observed, furnish the subjects of tragedy. It was not art, but
happy chance, that led the poets in search of subjects to impress the
tragic quality upon their plots. They are compelled, therefore, to have
recourse to those houses whose history contains moving incidents like
these.
Enough has now been said concerning the structure of the incidents,
and the right kind of plot.
XV
In respect of Character there are four things to be aimed at. First, and
most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that
manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character:
the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to
each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the
woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite
worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of
manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is
inappropriate. Thirdly, character must be true to life: for this is a
distinct thing from goodness and propriety, as here described. The
fourth point is consistency: for though the subject of the imitation, who
suggested the type, be inconsistent, still he must be consistently
inconsistent. As an example of motiveless degradation of character, we
have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character indecorous and
inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and the speech of
Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis,--for Iphigenia the
suppliant in no way resembles her later self.
As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character, the
poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable. Thus a
person of a given character should speak or act in a given way, by the
rule either of necessity or of probability; just as this event should
follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is therefore evident
that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must
arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the 'Deus ex
Machina'--as in the Medea, or in the Return of the Greeks in the Iliad.
The 'Deus ex Machina' should be employed only for events external to
the drama,--for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the
range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or
foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things.
Within the action there must be nothing irrational. If the irrational
cannot be excluded, it should be outside the scope of the tragedy. Such
is the irrational element in the Oedipus of Sophocles.
Again, since Tragedy is an imitation of persons who are above the
common level, the example of good portrait-painters should be
followed. They, while reproducing the distinctive form of the original,
make a likeness which is true to life and yet more beautiful. So too the
poet, in representing men who are irascible or indolent, or have other
defects of character, should preserve the type and yet ennoble it. In this
way Achilles is portrayed by Agathon and Homer.
These then are rules the poet should observe. Nor should he neglect
those appeals to the senses, which, though not among the essentials, are
the concomitants
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