The Defence of Poesie.
if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As for example, I may speake though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digresse from that, to the description of Calecut: But in action, I cannot represent it without Pacolets Horse. And so was the manner the Auncients tooke, by some Nuntius, to recount things done in former time or other place. Lastly, if they will represent an Historie, they must not (as Horace saith) beginne ab ouo, but they must come to the principall poynte of that one action which they will represent. By example this will be best expressed. I haue a storie of yoong Polidorus, deliuered for safeties sake with great riches, by his Father Priamus, to Polminester King of Thrace, in the Troyan warre time. He after some yeares, hearing the ouerthrowe of Priamus, for to make the treasure his owne, murthereth the Childe, the bodie of the Childe is taken vp, Hecuba, shee the same day, findeth a sleight to bee reuenged moste cruelly of the Tyrant. Where nowe would one of our Tragedie writers begin, but with the deliuerie of the Childe? Then should hee saile ouer into Thrace, and so spende I know not howe many yeares, and trauaile numbers of places. But where dooth Euripides? euen with the finding of the bodie, the rest leauing to be told by the spirite of Polidorus. This needes no further to bee enlarged, the dullest witte may conceiue it. But besides these grosse absurdities, howe all their Playes bee neither right Tragedies, nor right Comedies, mingling Kinges and Clownes, not because the matter so carrieth it, butthrust
