so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set
forth. And though Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit
it with him, and not miss with him. But they will say, How then
shall we set forth a story which contains both many places and many
times? And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of
poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having
liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history
to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told,
which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt
reporting and representing. As for example, I may speak, though I
am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description
of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's
horse. And so was the manner the ancients took by some "Nuntius,"
{85} to recount things done in former time, or other place.

Lastly, if they will represent an history, they must not, as Horace
saith, begin "ab ovo," {86} but they must come to the principal
point of that one action which they will represent. By example this
will be best expressed; I have a story of young Polydorus,
delivered, for safety's sake, with great riches, by his father
Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He,
after some years, hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to make
the treasure his own, murdereth the child; the body of the child is
taken up; Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be
revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now, would one of our
tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the child? Then
should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many
years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides?
Even with the finding of the body; leaving the rest to be told by
the spirit of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged; the