This effect is produced when the clever
rogue, like Sisyphus, is outwitted, or the brave villain defeated.
Such an event is probable in Agathon's sense of the word: 'is
probable,' he says, 'that many things should happen contrary to
probability.'
The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be
an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the
manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles. As for the later poets,
their choral songs pertain as little to the subject of the piece as to
that of any other tragedy. They are, therefore, sung as mere
interludes- a practice first begun by Agathon. Yet what difference
is there between introducing such choral interludes, and
transferring a speech, or even a whole act, from one play to another.
POETICS|19
XIX
It remains to speak of Diction and Thought, the other parts of
Tragedy having been already discussed. concerning Thought, we may
assume what is said in the Rhetoric, to which inquiry the subject more
strictly belongs. Under Thought is included every effect which has
to be produced by speech, the subdivisions being: proof and
refutation; the excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger,
and the like; the suggestion of importance or its opposite. Now, it is
evident that the dramatic incidents must be treated from the same
points of view as the dramatic speeches, when the object is to evoke
the sense of pity, fear, importance, or probability. The only
difference is that the incidents should speak for themselves without
verbal exposition; while effects aimed at in should be produced by the
speaker, and as a result of the speech.
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