(4) the decline of A or B towards (5) the Catastrophe. And it will be
seen that the fourth and fifth parts repeat, though with a reversal of
direction as regards A or B, the movement of the second and third,
working towards the catastrophe as the second and third worked towards
the crisis.

In developing, illustrating and qualifying this statement, it will be
best to begin with the tragedies in which the movement is most clear and
simple. These are _Julius Caesar_ and _Macbeth_. In the former the
fortunes of the conspiracy rise with vicissitudes up to the crisis of
the assassination (III. i.); they then sink with vicissitudes to the
catastrophe, where Brutus and Cassius perish. In the latter, Macbeth,
hurrying, in spite of much inward resistance, to the murder of Duncan,
attains the crown, the upward movement being extraordinarily rapid, and
the crisis arriving early: his cause then turns slowly downward, and
soon hastens to ruin. In both these tragedies the simplicity of the
constructional effect, it should be noticed, depends in part on the fact
that the contending forces may quite naturally be identified with
certain persons, and partly again on the fact that the defeat of one
side is the victory of the other. Octavius and Antony, Malcolm and
Macduff, are left standing over the bodies of their foes.

This is not so in _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Hamlet_, because here,
although the hero perishes, the side opposed to him, being the more
faulty or evil, cannot be allowed to triumph when he falls. Otherwise
the type of construction is the same. The fortunes of Romeo and Juliet
rise and culminate in their marriage (II. vi.), and then begin to
decline before the opposition of their houses, which, aided by
accidents, produces a catastrophe, but is thereupon converted into a
remorseful reconciliation. Hamlet's cause reaches its zenith in the