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3.1
THERE is also a third difference of these, consisting in the manner in which one may imitate each of
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them. For by the same instruments the same things may be imitated, the poet sometimes himself narrating, and sometimes assuming another person [as Homer does]1 ;
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or speaking as the same person without any change; or as all imitate [who do so] by deed and action.
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But imitation consists in these
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three differences, as we said in the beginning; viz. in the means, the objects, or the manner.
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Hence, Sophocles will in one respect be the same imitator as Homer, for both of them imitate elevated characters ; and in another the same as Aristophanes, for both of them imitate persons engaged in acting;
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[2 whence also it is said that certain persons call their works dramas, because they imitate those who are engaged in doing something. On this account the Dorians lay claim to the invention of tragedy and comedy; of comedy indeed the Megarians, as well those who are natives of Greece, as being invented by them at the time when their government was a democracy, as those of Sicily.
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For thence was the poet Epicharmus, who was much prior to Chonides and Magnes. But some of those Dorians who inhabit Peloponnesus lay claim to tragedy, making names an evidence. For they allege that they call their villages komai,
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but the Athenians demo;; as if comedians were not so denominated from komazein, [i. e. to revel,] but from their wandering through villages, being ignominiously expelled from the cities. The verb poiein also, or to make, is by the Dorians denominated dran,
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but by the Athenians prattein.]
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And thus much concerning the differences of imitation, as to their number and quality.
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