It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skilfully.
The cret of it lies in a fallabsp;For, assuming that if one thing is or bees, a d is or bees, men imagine that, if the d is, the first likewi is or bees.
But this is a fal inference.
Henbsp;where the first thing is untrue, it is quite unnecessary, provided the d be true, to add that the first is or has bee.
For the mind, knowing the d to be true, fally infers the truth of the first.
There is an example of this in the Bath Se of the Odysy.
Accly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.
The tragibsp;plot must not be pod of irrational parts.
Everything irrational should, if possible, be excluded; or, at all events, it should lie outside the a of the play (as, in the Oedipus, the hero''s ignoranbsp;as to the manner of Laius'' death); not within the drama,—as in the Electra, the mesnger''s at of the Pythian games; or, as in the Mysians, the man who has e from Tegea to Mysia and is still speechless.
The plea that otherwi the plot would have been ruined, is ridiculous; subsp;a plot should not in the first instanbsp;be structed.
But onbsp;the irrational has been introdubsp;and an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the absurdity.
Take even the irrational is in the Odysy, where Odysus is left upon the shore of Ithaca.
How intolerable even the might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to treat the subject.
As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetibsp;charm with whibsp;the poet is it.
The di should be elaborated in the paus of the a, where there is no expression of character or thought.
For, verly, character and thought are merely obscured by a di that is over brilliant.