[57]
had better never be told at all, says Slawkenbergius, but be kept to a man's self.
In all my ten tales, in all my ten decads, have I, Slawkenbergius, tied down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of the stranger and his nose.
—From his first parley with the centinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrance—where the characters of the Personæ Dramatis are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun.
The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and heightened, till it arrives at its state or height calledthe
