were urg'd for introducing that. The design of them was, either to welcome the Company, and prepare them for what was to be Acted; and this was call'd the Prologue: or else to thank and take leave of them; which was call'd the Exode or Epilogue.
All this made up the four parts of Quantity, as [1]Aristotle terms it: viz. The Prologue, the Episode, the Exode, and the Chorus. The Prologue is all that precedes the first Entrance of the Chorus; the Episode is all that is between the Songs of the Chorus; the Exode is that which is said after the Chorus has done singing; the Chorus was the Company of those who sang the praises of Bacchus: And at first that was the only Tragedy in being.
As this Narration of the Actors was inserted in several places, and made at several times: So one might consider it Entire, as one single Episode compos'd of several parts; and one might likewise call each part an Episode. In this last sense a Tragedy had several Episodes; and in the first it had but only one. These different Episodes of one and the same Tragedy might be deduc'd from as many different Subjects: Or be all taken from the same Subject, that was divided into as many Recitals or Incidents as the Poet had a mind to allow Intervals for the Chorus to take breath in. If we consider the first Institution of these foreign Pieces, there was not the least necessity of deducing all of them from one and the same subject. Three or four Recitals of different Actions, that had no relation to one another, could refresh the singers well enough, and keep the Audience from languishing, as much as if they had all been only different parts of one and the same Action, very closely connected together.
But these foreign Beauties soon took off from the lustre of those others which so charitably gave them Entertainment: And that which at first was only an Addition to Tragedy, afterwards became the Principal part of it. Then, they were consider'd as a Body, whose Members should not be Heterogeneous, and independant on one another. The best Poets made use of them thus, and they deduc'd their Episodes only from one single Action. This was so far establish'd in Aristotle's time, that he made a standing Rule of it, He says, that the most defective Tragedies are such, whose Episodes have no manner of Connexion. He calls them Episodical, that is to say, overcharg'd with Episodes: Because these lesser Episodes cannot make one single one, but of necessity remain in a Vicious Multiplicity.
- ↑ (
Greek characters). Arist. Poet. c. 12.
Actions,
