20
So this is the reason, as was said above,See Aristot. Poet. 13.7. why tragedies are about a few families. For in their experiments it was from no technical knowledge but purely by chance that they found out how to produce such an effect in their stories. So they are obliged to have recourse to those families in which such calamities befell.See Aristot. Poet. 9.8, note.
21
Now concerning the structure of the incidents and the proper character of the plots enough has been said.
1
Concerning character there are four points to aim at. The first and most important is that the character should be good.
2
The play will show character if, as we said above,See Aristot. Poet. 6.24. either the dialogue or the actions reveal some choice; and the character will be good, if the choice is good.
3
But this is relative to each class of people. Even a woman is good and so is a slave, although it may be said that a woman is an inferior thing and a slave beneath consideration.
4
The second point is that the characters should be appropriate. A character may be manly, but it is not appropriate for a woman to be manly or clever.
5
Thirdly, it should be like.The meaning probably is like the traditional person, e.g. Achilles must not be soft nor Odysseus stupid. Cf. Horace Ars Poet. 120 famam sequere. This is different from making the character good and from making it appropriate in the sense of the word as used above.
