The Defence of Poesie.
flowers, and then we must beleeue the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Vpon the back of that, comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a Caue: while in the meane time two Armies flie in, represented with soure swords & bucklers, and thē what hard hart wil not receiue it for a pitched field. Now of time, they are much more liberall. For ordinarie it is, that two yoong Princes fall in loue, after many trauerses she is got with childe, deliuered of a faire boy: he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in loue, and is readie to get an other childe, and all this in two houres space: which howe absurd it is in sence, euen sence may imagine: and Arte hath taught, and all auncient examples iustified, and at this day the ordinarie players in Italie will not erre in. Yet will some bring in an example of Eunuche in Terence, that conteineth matter of two dayes, yet far short of twentie yeares. True it is, and so was it to be played in two dayes, and so fitted to the time it set foorth. And though Plautus haue in one place done amisse, let vs hit it with him, & not misse with him. But they will say, how then shall we set foorth a storie, which contains both many places, and many times? And do they not know that a Tragidie is tied to the lawes of Poesie and not of Historie: not bounde to follow the storie, but hauing libertie either to faine a quite new matter, or to frame the Historie to the most Tragicall conueniencie. Againe, many things may be told which cannot be shewed:if
