xture, it
may be, of strange words and metaphors, as also of the various modified
forms of words, since the use of these is conceded in poetry. (3) It is
to be remembered, too, that there is not the same kind of correctness
in poetry as in politics, or indeed any other art. There is, however,
within the limits of poetry itself a possibility of two kinds of error,
the one directly, the other only accidentally connected with the art. If
the poet meant to describe the thing correctly, and failed through
lack of power of expression, his art itself is at fault. But if it was
through his having meant to describe it in some incorrect way (e.g. to
make the horse in movement have both right legs thrown forward) that the
technical error (one in a matter of, say, medicine or some other special
science), or impossibilities of whatever kind they may be, have got into
his description, his error in that case is not in the essentials of the
poetic art. These, therefore, must be the premisses of the Solutions in
answer to the criticisms involved in the Problems.

I. As to the criticisms relating to the poet's art itself. Any
impossibilities there may be in his descriptions of things are faults.
But from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the
end of poetry itself--if (to assume what we have said of that end) they
make the effect of some portion of the work more astounding. The Pursuit
of Hector is an instance in point. If, however, the poetic end might
have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of technical
correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified,
since the description should be, if it can, entirely free from error.
One may ask, too, whether the error is in a matter directly or only
accidentally connected with the poetic art; since it is a lesser error
in an artist not to know, for instance, that the hind has no horns, than
to produce an unrecognizable picture of one.

II. If the poet's description be criticized as not true to fact, one may
urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described--an answer like
that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be, and
Euripides as they were. If the description, however, be neither true nor
of the thing as it ought to be, the answer must be then, that it is in
accordance with opinion. The tales about Gods, for instance, may be as
wrong as Xenophanes thinks, neither true nor the better thing to say;
but they are ce