at the incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of
the story in _Oedipus_ would have on one. To produce this same effect
by means of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous
aid. Those, however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us
that which is merely monstrous and not productive of fear, are wholly
out of touch with Tragedy; not every kind of pleasure should be
required of a tragedy, but only its own proper pleasure.

The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to
produce it by a work of imitation; it is clear, therefore, that the
causes should be included in the incidents of his story. Let us see,
then, what kinds of incident strike one as horrible, or rather as
piteous. In a deed of this description the parties must necessarily be
either friends, or enemies, or indifferent to one another. Now when
enemy does it on enemy, there is nothing to move us to pity either in
his doing or in his meditating the deed, except so far as the actual
pain of the sufferer is concerned; and the same is true when the
parties are indifferent to one another. Whenever the tragic deed,
however, is done within the family--when murder or the like is done or
meditated by brother on brother, by son on father, by mother on son,
or son on mother--these are the situations the poet should seek after.
The traditional stories, accordingly, must be kept as they are, e.g.
the murder of Clytaemnestra by Orestes and of Eriphyle by Alcmeon. At
the same time even with these there is something left to the poet
himself; it is for him to devise the right way of treating them. Let
us explain more clearly what we mean by 'the right way'. The deed of
horror may be done by the doer knowingly and consciously, as in the
old poets, and in Medea's murder of her children in Euripides. Or he
may do it, but in ignorance of his relationship, and discover that
afterwards, as does the _Oedipus_ in Sophocles. Here the deed is