Chapter 25

With regard to problems, and the various solutions of them, how many kinds there are, and the nature of each kind, all will be clear if we look at them like this.

Since the poet represents life, as a painter does or any other maker of likenesses, he must always represent one of three things—either things as they were or are; or things as they are said and seem to be; or things as they should be.

These are expressed in diction with or without rare words and metaphors, there being many modifications of diction, all of which we allow the poet to use.

Moreover, the standard of what is correct is not the same in the art of poetry as it is in the art of social conduct or any other art.

In the actual art of poetry there are two kinds of errors, essential and accidental.

If a man meant to represent something and failed through incapacity, that is an essential error. But if his error is due to his original conception being wrong and his portraying, for example, a horse advancing both its right legs, that is then a technical error in some special branch of knowledge, in medicine, say, or whatever it may be; or else some sort of impossibility has been portrayed, but that is not an essential error.

These considerations must, then, be kept in view in meeting the charges contained in these objections.

Let us first take the charges against the art of poetry itself. If an impossibility has been portrayed, an error has been made.

But it is justifiable if the poet thus achieves the object of poetry—what that is has been already stated—and makes that part or some other part of the poem more striking. The pursuit of Hector is an example of this.

If, however, the object could have been achieved better or just as well without sacrifice of technical accuracy, then it is not justifiable, for, if possible, there should be no error at all in any part of the poem.

Again one must ask of which kind is the error, is it an error in poetic art or a chance error in some other field? It is less of an error not to know that a female stag has no horns than to make a picture that is unrecognizable.

Next, supposing the charge is That is not true, one can meet it by saying But perhaps it ought to be, just as Sophocles said that he portrayed people as they ought to be and Euripides portrayed them as they are.

If neither of these will do, then say, Such is the tale; for instance, tales about gods.

Very likely there is no advantage in telling them, and they are not true either, but may well be what Xenophanes declared —all the same such is the tale.

In another case, perhaps, there is no advantage but such was the fact, e.g. the case of the arms, Their spears erect on butt-spikes stood, for that was then the custom, as it still is in Illyria.

As to the question whether anything that has been said or done is morally good or bad, this must be answered not merely by seeing whether what has actually been done or said is noble or base, but by taking into consideration also the man who did or said it, and seeing to whom he did or said it, and when and for whom and for what reason; for example, to secure a greater good or to avoid a greater evil.

Some objections may be met by reference to the diction, for example, by pleading rare word, e.g. οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον, for perhaps he means not mules but sentinels. And Dolon, One that was verily evil of form, it may be not his deformed body but his ugly face, for the Cretans use fair-formed for fair-featured. And again Livelier mix it may mean not undiluted as for drunkards but quicker.

Other expressions are metaphorical, for example:

Then all the other immortals and men lay all night in slumber, while yet he says:

Yea, when indeed he gazed at the Trojan plain Agamemnon

Marvelled at voices of flutes... All is used instead of many metaphorically, all being a species of many. And again, Alone unsharing is metaphorical; the best known is called the only one.

By intonation also; for example, the solutions of Hippias of Thasos, his δίδομεν δέ οἱ and τὸ μὲν οὗ καταπύθεται ὄμβρῳ;

and by punctuation; for example, the lines of Empedocles:

Soon mortal grow they that aforetime learnt

Immortal ways, and pure erstwhile commingled.

Or again by ambiguity, e.g. παρῴχηκεν δὲ πλέω νύξ, where πλείω is ambiguous.

Others according to the habitual use of the phrase, e.g. wine and water is called wine so you get the phrase greaves of new-wrought tin; or workers in iron are called braziers, and so Ganymede is said to pour wine for Zeus, though they do not drink wine. This last might however be metaphorical.

Whenever a word seems to involve a contradiction, one should consider how many different meanings it might bear in the passage, e.g. in There the bronzen shaft was stayed, we should ask in how many ways being stayed might be taken, interpreting the passage in this sense or in that, and keeping as far as possible from the attitude which Glaucon describes when he says that people make some unwarrantable presupposition and having themselves given an adverse verdict proceed to argue from it, and if what they think the poet has said does not agree with their own preconceived ideas, they censure him, as if that was what he had said.

This is what has happened in the case of Icarius. They assume that he was a Spartan and therefore find it odd that when Telemachus went to Sparta he did not meet him. But the truth may be, as the Cephallenians say, that Odysseus married a wife from their country and that the name was not Icarius but Icadius. So the objection is probably due to a mistake.

In general any impossibility may be defended by reference to the poetic effect or to the ideal or to current opinion.

For poetic effect a convincing impossibility is preferable to that which is unconvincing though possible.

It may be impossible that there should be such people as Zeuxis used to paint, but it would be better if there were; for the type should improve on the actual.

Popular tradition may be used to defend what seems irrational, and you can also say that sometimes it is not irrational, for it is likely that unlikely things should happen.

Contradictions in terms must be examined in the same way as an opponent’s refutations in argument, to see whether the poet refers to the same thing in the same relation and in the same sense, and has contradicted either what he expressly says himself or what an intelligent person would take to be his meaning.

It is right, however, to censure both improbability and depravity where there is no necessity and no use is made of the improbability. An example is Euripides’ intro duction of Aegeus or(of depravity)the character of Menelans in the Orestes.

The censures they bring are of five kinds; that things are either impossible or irrational or harmful or inconsistent or contrary to artistic correctness. The solutions must be studied under the heads specified above, twelve in number.