The Theory of Greek Tragedy 23 
is neither reason nor consistency. As Aristotle says, it is simply 
shocking. While it does in reality express what is felt to be the 
tragedy of fact, while it has Naturwahrheit; it is from the Greek 
point of view utterly lacking in Kunstwahrheit. And the differ- 
ence of our own feeling in this respect serves to measure the 
interval between the two tragedies. On this account the only 
possible protagonist for the Athenian was the sort that we have 
had in mind all along—the fallible character, neither wholly good 
nor wholly bad, but liable to error. As such he is subject to pity 
by his infirmity and to horror by his iniquity—he is amenable 
equally to the requirements of problem and solution. 
In addition to these features of Greek tragedy, which may be 
regarded as primary inasmuch as they derive immediately from 
its postulates and are necessary corollaries of its definition, there 
are others mentioned by Aristotle as incidental and ancillary. 
Their presence is the test of a complex, as distinguished from a 
simple action, which hinges solely upon a metabasis or reverse of 
fortune, while the former may also include a peripeteia, an agni- 
tion, and a sensation (za6os).1 As a matter of fact, then, these 
secondary characters are merely special devices for reinforcing 
the emotional impression of qualm and catharsis, which, as he 
observes, is more impressive when the incidents of the drama 
occur contrary to expectation, and still more so when they occur 
by reason of one another.* So a peripeteia is defined as an effect 
1 Though Aristotle fails to mention mdéO0s with wepurérea and avayvepiots 
as one of the differentiae of complex tragedy, he discusses it immediately 
in connection with these other two as a third part of the mv@os. At the 
same time the Prometheus Bound is opened by a md6os, if indeed the 
whole play is not one prolonged 7460s. Since the whole distinction is of 
no great importance in this connection, there is no particular use in discuss- 
ing it here. 
261 d\d\mha. Hardly by cause and effect in the modern connotation, as 
the case of Mitys’ statue at Argos proves. The connection in Aristotle’s 
mind, I venture to think, was moral, not physical. Of course I do not 
mean to imply that Aristotle was without the notion of causal sequence 
and that he may not have had it in the corner of his eye in this case. But 
I conceive that his idea of cause in this instance would have included that 
of reason also; it would have involved an answer to the question why as 
well as to the question how. 
22 
