The first of these Intrigues, and the most considerable Obstacle of all, is that of Dido, which takes up the first and fourth Book. The second is the Burning of his Fleet in the fifth Book. The third is the Love, the Ambition, and the Valour of Turnus. This last supply'd him with a great many Episodes, being the Cause of all the War Æneas met with in Italy. It begins at the seventh Book, and is not over till the End of the Poem. 'Tis thus that the Episodes of the Æneid are deduc'd from the Fable and the very Essence of the Action.
The second Thing we said was necessary for the Unity of the Action, is the Unity and the Connexion of the Episodes with one another. For besides that Relation and Proportion which all the Members ought to have with one another, so as to constitute but one Body, which should be homogeneous in all its parts; 'tis requir'd farther, that these Members should be, not contiguous as if they were cut off and clap'd together again, but uninterrupted and duly connected. Without this, the natural Members would not make up that Union, which is necessary to constitute a Body.
The Continuity and Situation of Episodes is not exact, when they only follow one another: but they should be plac'd one after another so as the first shall either be necessarily or probably the Cause of that which follows. [1] Aristotle finds fault with Incidents that are without any Consequence or Connexion; and he says that the Poems, wherein such sorts of Episodes are, offend against the Unity of Action. He brings, as an Instance of this Defect, the Wound which Ulysses receiv'd upon Parnassus, and the Folly he counterfeited before the Grecian Princes: because one of these Incidents could not have happen'd as a Consequence of the other; Homer could not have given them a necessary Connexion and Continuity: nor has he spoil'd the Unity of the Odysseïs by such a Mixture.
But he gives us a compleat Instance of the Continuity we speak of, in the Method whereby he has connected the two parts of his Iliad; which are the Anger of Achilles against Agamemnon, and the Anger of the same Hero against Hector. The Poet would not have duly connected these two Episodes, if before the Death of Patroclus, Achilles had been less inexorable, and had accepted of the Satisfaction Agamemnon offer'd him. This would have made two Angers and two Revenges quite different from, and independent of one another. And though both had been necessary and essential to the Fable, to make it appear what Mischiefs Discord, and what Advantages Concord is the Cause of: Yet the Unity would have been only in the Fable, but the Action would have been double and Episodical: because the first Episode would
- ↑ GREEK HERE Poet. cap. 8.
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