he 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 of poetry; for here too there is much room for error.
But of this enough has been said in our published treatises.

XVI

What Recognition is has been already explained. We will now enumerate
its kinds.

First, the least artistic form, which, from poverty of wit, is
most commonly employed recognition by signs. Of these some are
congenital,--such as 'the spear which the earth-born race bear on their
bodies,' or the stars introduced by Carcinus in his Thyestes. Others are
acquired after birth; and of these some are bodily marks, as scars; some
external tokens, as necklaces, or the little ark in the Tyro by which
the discovery is effected. Even these admit of more or less skilful
treatment. Thus in the recognition of Odysseus by his scar, the
discovery is made in one way by the nurse, in another by the swineherds.
The use of tokens for the express purpose of proof--and, indeed,
any formal proof with or without tokens--is a less artistic mode of
recognition. A better kind is that which comes about by a turn of
incident, as in the Bath Scene in the Odyssey.

Next come the recognitions invented at will by the poet, and on that
account wanting in art. For example, Orestes in the Iphigenia reveals
the fact that he is Orestes. She, indeed, makes herself known by the
letter; but he, by speaking himself, and saying what the poet, not what
the plot requires. This, therefore, is nearly allied to the fault above
mentioned:--for Orestes might as well have brought tokens with him.
Another similar instance is the 'voice of the shuttle' in the Tereus of
Sophocles.

The third kind depends on memory when the sight of some object awakens
a feeling: as in the Cyprians of Dicaeogenes, where the hero breaks into
tears on seeing the picture; or again in the 'Lay of Alcinous,' where
Odysseus,