_Medea_, or in the story of the
(arrested) departure of the Greeks in the _Iliad_. The artifice must
be reserved for matters outside the play--for past events beyond human
knowledge, 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, 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, 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.

16

Discovery in general has been explained already. As for the species of
Discovery, 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', or 'stars', such as
Carcinus brings in 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_. 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 and in another by the
swineherds. 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_, is of a better
order. 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