But though it was necessary that Ulysses should be with strange Princes for several Years; yet it was not necessary that one of these Princes should be Antiphates, another Alcinous; nor that the Nymph Calypso, and the Enchantress Circe should be his Hostesses. One might have changed these Persons and States into others, without changing the Design and the Fable. Thus, though these Adventures were part of the Subject after the Poet's Choice of them, yet they were not proper to the Subject.
It is likewise necessary to the Subject, that Ulysses revenge himself, and punish his Wife's Courtiers; but 'tis neither proper nor necessary that he should kill them with Javelins, as they were at Supper in his House, at Night too, and none to assist him but his Son and two or three of his Domestics. He might have appear'd at the Head of an Army, and without the least Surprize have kill'd them with his drawn Sword at their own Houses, or in the open Field. But yet will any Man say, that his killing them with Javelins is not part of the Subject?
In a word, the Revenge he takes, and the punishing of these Miscreants, exprest in short, as we see it in the Model Aristotle has left us, is a simple Action proper and necessary to the Subject. It is not an Episode, but the Foundation and Soul of an Episode: and this same Punishment explain'd and amplified with all the Circumstances of Times, Places, and Persons, is not a simple and proper Action, but an Episodiz'd Action, and a true Episode: And though the Poet is left at his Freedom and Choice therein, yet it does not follow that the Episode is form'd upon a less proper and necessary Foundation.
'Tis in this last Sense, and of this only sort of Episodes, we shall generally speak.
CHAP. VI.
The Definition of Episodes.
After what has been said, we may very well infer, That Episodes are necessary Parts of the Action, extended by probable Circumstances.
An Episode is but a part of an Action, and not an entire one; like that of Hypsipyle in Statius, which renders this Poem defective and Episodical.
That part of the Action which serves for a Foundation to the Episode, ought not to continue in its Simplicity; such as it is in the General related in the first Draught of the Fable. Aristo-tle
