Narration,
doubtless, preceded acting, and gave laws to it. What at first was
told artfully was in process of time represented gracefully to the
sight and hearing. Those episodes of Homer which were proper for
the stage, the poets amplified each into an action. Out of his
limbs they formed their bodies; what he had contracted, they
enlarged; out of one Hercules were made infinity of pigmies, yet all
endued with human souls; for from him, their great creator, they
have each of them the divinae particulam aurae. They flowed from
him at first, and are at last resolved into him. Nor were they only
animated by him, but their measure and symmetry was owing to him.
His one, entire, and great action was copied by them, according to
the proportions of the drama. If he finished his orb within the
year, it sufficed to teach them that their action being less, and
being also less diversified with incidents, their orb, of
consequence, must be circumscribed in a less compass, which they
reduced within the limits either of a natural or an artificial day.
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