(6) One should
also remember what has been said more than once, and not write a
tragedy on an epic body of incident (i.e. one with a plurality of
stories in it), by attempting to dramatize, for instance, the entire
story of the _Iliad_. In the epic owing to its scale every part is
treated at proper length; with a drama, however, on the same story the
result is very disappointing. This is shown by the fact that all who
have dramatized the fall of Ilium in its entirety, and not part by
part, like Euripides, or the whole of the Niobe story, instead of a
portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have but ill success
on the stage; for that and that alone was enough to rui.e.en a play
by Agathon. Yet in their Peripeties, as also in their simple plots,
the poets I mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect
they desire--a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one,
like the clever villain (e.g. Sisyphus) deceived, or the brave
wrongdoer worsted. This is probable, however, only in Agathon's sense,
when he speaks of the probability of even improbabilities coming to
pass.
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