Upon the back of that comes
out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable
beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the meantime,
two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and
then, what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field?
Now of time they are much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two
young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with
child; delivered of a fair boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth
in love, and is ready to get another child; and all this in two
hours' space; which, how absurd it is in sense, even sense may
imagine; and art hath taught and all ancient examples justified, and
at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will
some bring in an example of the Eunuch in Terence, that containeth
matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and
so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set
forth. And though Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit
it with him, and not miss with him. But they will say, How then
shall we set forth a story which contains both many places and many
times? And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of
poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having
liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history
to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told,
which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt
reporting and representing.
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