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5.1
BUT comedy is, as we have said, an imitation indeed of bad characters, yet it does not imitate them according to every vice, [but the ridiculous only;] since the ridiculous is a portion of turpitude. For the ridiculous is a certain error, and turpitude unattended with pain, and not destructive.
5.2
Thus, for instance, a ridiculous face is something deformed and distorted without pain.
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The transitions, therefore, of tragedy, and the causes through which they are produced, are not unknown;
5.3
but [those of] comedy have escaped our knowledge, because it was not at first an object of attention. For it was late before the magistrate gave a chorus to comedians 1; but prior to that period, the choruses were voluntary.
5.4
Comedy, however, at length having obtained a certain form, those who are said to have been poets therein are commemorated. But it is unknown who it was
3
that introduced masks or prologues,
or a multitude of players, and such like particulars.
5.5
But Epicharmus and Phormis [were the first] to compose fables ;
5.6
which, therefore, originated from Sicily. But among the Athenians, Crates, rejecting the Iambic
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form, first began generally to compose speeches and fables.
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5.7
The epopee, therefore, is an attendant on tragedy, [with the exception of the long metre 4,] since through this it is an imitation of worthy characters and actions. But it differs from tragedy in that it has a simple metre, and is a narration.
5.8
It also [differs from it] in length. For tragedy is especially limited by one period of the sun, or admits but a small variation from this period; but the epopee is not defined within a certain time,
5.9
and in this it differs; though at first they observed the same conduct with tragedy5, no less than epic poetry.
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5.10
With respect to the parts, however, [of the epopee and tragedy,] some are the same in both, but others are peculiar to tragedy.
5.11
Hence he who knows what is a good or bad tragedy, knows the same in respect to epic poetry. For those things which the epopee possesses are to be found in tragedy; but every thing which tragedy contains is not in the epopee.