living and moving before us.

  These, then, as we said at the beginning, are the three
differences which distinguish artistic imitation- the medium, the
objects, and the manner. So that from one point of view, Sophocles
is an imitator of the same kind as Homer- for both imitate higher
types of character; from another point of view, of the same kind as
Aristophanes- for both imitate persons acting and doing. Hence, some
say, the name of 'drama' is given to such poems, as representing
action. For the same reason the Dorians claim the invention both of
Tragedy and Comedy. The claim to Comedy is put forward by the
Megarians- not only by those of Greece proper, who allege that it
originated under their democracy, but also by the Megarians of Sicily,
for the poet Epicharmus, who is much earlier than Chionides and
Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is claimed by certain
Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal to the evidence
of language. The outlying villages, they say, are by them called
komai, by the Athenians demoi: and they assume that comedians were
so named not from komazein, 'to revel,' but because they wandered from
village to village (kata komas), being excluded contemptuously from
the city. They add also that the Dorian word for 'doing' is dran,
and the Athenian, prattein.

  This may suffice as to the number and nature of the various modes of
imitation.
POETICS|4

  IV

  Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is
implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and
other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures,
and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less
universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of
this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view
with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute
fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead
bodies. The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the
liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general;
whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the
reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it
they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah,
that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the original, the
pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the
execution, the coloring, or some such other cause.

  Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the
instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of
rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift
developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude
improvisations gave birth to Poetry.

  Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual
character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions,
and the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the
actions of meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former
did hymns to the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the
satirical kind cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than
Homer; though many such writers probably there were. But from Homer
onward, instances can be cited- his own Margites, for example, and
other similar compositions. The appropriate meter was also here
introduced; hence the measure is still called the iambic or lampooning
measure, being that in which people lampooned one another. Thus the
older poets were distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning
verse.

  As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he
alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation so he too
first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous
instead of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same
relation to comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy. But
when Tragedy and Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets
still followed their natural bent: the lampooners became writers of
Comedy, and the Epic poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the
drama was a larger and higher form of art.

  Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and
whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the
audience- this raises another question. Be that as it may, Tragedy- as
also Comedy- was at first mere improvisation. The one originated
with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic
songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy
advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in
turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its
natural form, and there it stopped.

  Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the
importance of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the
dialogue.  Sophocles raised the number of actors to three, and added
scene-painting. Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was
discarded for one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the
earlier satyric form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic
measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally
employed when the poetry was of the satyric order, and had greater
with dancing. Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the
appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most
colloquial we see it in the fact that conversational speech runs
into iambic lines more frequently than into any other kind of verse;
rarely into hexameters, and only when we drop the colloquial