# Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the Epick Poem/Chapter 23

CHAP. V.
Concerning the Nature of Episodes.
An Episode, according to Aristotle, should not be taken from something else and added to the Action; but should constitute a part of the Action it self. That this is Aristotle's Mind, we shall find, if we would but reflect, that this great Master, when he treated of Episodes, never made use of this Word to Add, although his Interpreters have found it so natural, that they have commonly made use of it in their Translations and Notes.
When he commends Homer for taking only part of the Siege of Troy for the Subject-Matter of his Iliad; he does not say that he has amplified it by Adding a great many Episodes to it; this Expression would distinguish the Episodes from the Matter to which they would have been added: But he says,That he made use of a great many Episodes of this Action: and this denotes that the Episodes of the Iliad were part of the Action which is the Subject-Matter thereof. And a few Lines after he says, That the Poet divided his Poem by Episodes. This is what we observ'd before in Oedipus.
​If the Episodes were taken elsewhere, and added to the Action, whereof they were not parts, it would signifie little whether they were join'd and connected with one another or no, but they should be join'd to the Action, and thisAristotle should have taught us. And yet he does no such thing, but orders us to connect them with one another.
He does not say, that after one has prepar'd the Platform of the Fable, and made Choice of the Names, one should add the Episodes; but he makes use of a Verb deriv'd from this Word; as if we should say in our Language, "That the Poet ought to Episodize his Action. And elsewhere he says, "That the Episodes should not be foreign, butproper to the Subject.
In fine, we might likewise alledge this very Chapter, wherein Aristotle lays down the first Draught of the Odysseïs, and which he concludes by saying, that whatever he has propos'd is proper to the Subject, and that the Episodes make up the rest. In this Passage, to give us a reason of the different Extent of Tragedy and the Epopéa; or to inform us how this last becomes longer: He does not say, that they Add a few Episodes to the Tragick Action, and a great many to the Epick; but he says more exactly, That the Episodes of Tragedy are short and concise, and the Epopéa is extended and amplified by its Episodes. He demonstrates this Length of the Epopéa amplified by the Extent of its Episodes, by the Poem of the Odysseïs, which he brings as an Example, and says,The Subject of it is long. Now if the Episodes (take the Word in what sense you please) be not part of the Subject, 'tis plain the more room they take up the less is left for the Subject; and that the longer they are, the more straitned and short will the Subject be. If then the Epopéa be stretch'd out by its Episodes, and if for this very reason the Subject of the Odysseïs is long, as Aristotle affirms; it then necessarily follows, that the Subject is nothing else but the very Episodes.
The better to demonstrate this Length of the Odysseïs, Aristotle adds, That the Subject of this Poem is a Voyage for several Years; That Neptune did all he could to hinder the chief Personage from returning home; that he does return thither notwithstanding; where he meets with very great Disorders, the Authors of which he punishes, and so restores Peace and Quietness to his Kingdom. This Subject is indeed a great deal longer than that of the Iliad; and it requires a longer time, and more Actions for all these things, than for the simple Anger of an ​enrag'd and pacified person, where every thing was transacted in one and the same place.
This Length of the Odysseïs, compar'd to that of the Iliad, would still hold good, though we should substract from it the several Years which precede the opening of the Poem; and began the Action only at the time of the first Council of the Gods. For it would be still longer than that of the Iliad by a fifth part; the one taking up 58 Days, and the other only 47 or 48.
But one cannot exclude from the Subject that which precedes the opening of the Poem, and that which Ulysses relates to Alcinous, without contradictingAristotle, by reducing into the Compass of less than two Months, what he says took up several Years. This would be to giveHomer himself the Lye, who says, That his Subject contains the Voyages and Travels of a Man, who after the taking of Troy, saw several Cities, and knew the Customs of a great many States and People: he says, that he suffer'd much by Sea, and did all he could to secure the Return of his Attendants as well as of himself. Now all this did not happen since the first Council of the Gods. Then, there were seven whole Years, in which he never so much as thought of his Attendants, for they were all destroy'd. And since that, there happen'd but one Tempest, and he visited no more than one City. These seven Years then, and all the Adventures, the Travels, and the Tempests which preceeded, from the Ruin of Troy down to that time, are not extraneous, foreign, or additional Pieces; but are with the rest the Subject of the Poem. And yet they are Episodes, as Aristotle asserts in these Words, The rest are Episodes: for this Rest is all that he did not name in particular. Now he spoke only in general, of the Absence of Ulysses, of the Storms he met with, of the Disturbances of Ithaca, and of the Re-establishment of this Prince.
In short, when we discours'd of the Nature of the Fable, we there took notice of the absolute Necessity the Poet lay under of keeping Ulysses from his Country a very long time; of ordering his Absence as caused by the Storms he met with; of casting this Hero upon several different Countries; of raising great Disorders in Ithaca; of making an Example of his Enemies by punishing them; and of re-establishing the Prince himself. This was so far necessary to the Subject, that the Poet was not left to his Liberty of changing it, without destroying his Design, spoiling his Fable, and making another Poem of it. ​But though it was necessary that Ulysses should be with strange Princes for several Years; yet it was not necessary that one of these Princes should be Antiphates, another Alcinous; nor that the Nymph Calypso, and the Enchantress Circe should be his Hostesses. One might have changed these Persons and States into others, without changing the Design and the Fable. Thus, though these Adventures were part of the Subject after the Poet's Choice of them, yet they were not proper to the Subject.
It is likewise necessary to the Subject, that Ulysses revenge himself, and punish his Wife's Courtiers; but 'tis neither proper nor necessary that he should kill them with Javelins, as they were at Supper in his House, at Night too, and none to assist him but his Son and two or three of his Domestics. He might have appear'd at the Head of an Army, and without the least Surprize have kill'd them with his drawn Sword at their own Houses, or in the open Field. But yet will any Man say, that his killing them with Javelins is not part of the Subject?
In a word, the Revenge he takes, and the punishing of these Miscreants, exprest in short, as we see it in the Model Aristotle has left us, is a simple Action proper and necessary to the Subject. It is not an Episode, but the Foundation and Soul of an Episode: and this same Punishment explain'd and amplified with all the Circumstances of Times, Places, and Persons, is not a simple and proper Action, but an Episodiz'd Action, and a true Episode: And though the Poet is left at his Freedom and Choice therein, yet it does not follow that the Episode is form'd upon a less proper and necessary Foundation.
'Tis in this last Sense, and of this only sort of Episodes, we shall generally speak.
* ↑ (Greek characters)
* ↑ (Greek characters)
* ↑ (Greek characters) Cap. 9.
* ↑ (Greek characters) Cap. 17.
* ↑ (Greek characters) Ibid.
* ↑ (Greek characters) Ibid.
* ↑ (Greek characters) Cap. 17.
* ↑ (Greek characters) Odyss. I.
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