sarily either good men or bad--the diversities of human character
being nearly always derivative from this primary distinction, since the
line between virtue and vice is one dividing the whole of mankind. It
follows, therefore, that the agents represented must be either above our
own level of goodness, or beneath it, or just such as we are in the same
way as, with the painters, the personages of Polygnotus are better
than we are, those of Pauson worse, and those of Dionysius just like
ourselves. It is clear that each of the above-mentioned arts will
admit of these differences, and that it will become a separate art by
representing objects with this point of difference. Even in dancing,
flute-playing, and lyre-playing such diversities are possible; and they
are also possible in the nameless art that uses language, prose or verse
without harmony, as its means; Homer's personages, for instance, are
better than we are; Cleophon's are on our own level; and those of
Hegemon of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares,
the author of the _Diliad_, are beneath it. The same is true of the
Dithyramb and the Nome: the personages may be presented in them with the
difference exemplified in the... of... and Argas, and in the Cyclopses
of Timotheus and Philoxenus. This difference it is that distinguishes
Tragedy and Comedy also; the one would make its personages worse, and
the other better, than the men of the present day.

3

III. A third difference in these arts is in the manner in which each
kind of object is represented. Given both the same means and the same
kind of object for imitation, one may either (1) speak at one moment in
narrative and at another in an assumed character, as Homer does; or (2)
one may remain the same throughout, without any such change; or (3) the
imitators may represent the whole story dramatically, as though they
were actually doing the things described.

As we said at the beginning, therefore, the differences in the imitation
of these arts come under three heads, their means, their objects, and
their manner.

So that as an imitator Sophocles will be on one side akin to Homer, both
portraying good men; and on another to Aristophanes, since both present
their personages as acting and doing. This in fact, according to some,
is the reason for plays being termed dramas, because in a play the
personages act the story. Hence too both Tragedy and Comedy are claimed
by the Dorians as their