4
while those who by such means produce an effect which is not fearful but merely monstrous have nothing in common with tragedy.that here were plays which relied for their effect on the scenery and make up is clear from chapter 17:—The Phorcides and Prometheus and Scenes laid in Hades. It was even possible to produce the Eumenides so badly as to bring it into this category. But Aristotle’s criticism here includes the more important point that the poignancy of a Greek tragedy is due to what happens and not to our seeing it happen. That Medea murders her children is tragic: to display the murder coram populo would add either nothing or something merely monstrous. And although Sophocles shows Oedipus with his eyes out, it is the fact and not the sight which is properly tragic. For one should not seek from tragedy all kinds of pleasure but that which is peculiar to tragedy,
5
and since the poet must by representation produce the pleasure which comes from feeling pity and fear, obviously this quality must be embodied in the incidents.
6
We must now decide what incidents seem dreadful or rather pitiable. Such must necessarily be the actions of friends to each other or of enemies or of people that are neither.
7
Now if an enemy does it to an enemy, there is nothing pitiable either in the deed or the intention,
8
except so far as the actual calamity goes.
