3
But this is relative to each class of people. Even a woman is good and so is a slave, although it may be said that a woman is an inferior thing and a slave beneath consideration.
4
The second point is that the characters should be appropriate. A character may be manly, but it is not appropriate for a woman to be manly or clever.
5
Thirdly, it should be like.The meaning probably is like the traditional person, e.g. Achilles must not be soft nor Odysseus stupid. Cf. Horace Ars Poet. 120 famam sequere. This is different from making the character good and from making it appropriate in the sense of the word as used above.
6
Fourthly, it should be consistent. Even if the original be inconsistent and offers such a character to the poet for representation, still he must be consistently inconsistent.
7
An example of unnecessary badness of character is Menelaos in the OrestesAristotle has a personal distaste for this character on the ground that Euripides made him a creature meaner than the plot demands.;
8
of character that is unfitting and inappropriate the lament of Odysseus in the ScyllaA dithyramb by Timotheus. Cf. Aristot. Poet. 26.3. and Melanippe’s speechA fragment survives (Eur. Fr. 484 (Nauck)). Euripides seems to have given her a knowledge of science and philosophy inappropriate to a woman.;
9
of inconsistent character Iphigeneia in Aulis, for the suppliant Iphigeneia is not at all like her later character.
10
In character-drawing just as much as in the arrangement of the incidents one should always seek what is inevitable or probable, so as to make it inevitable or probable that such and such a person should say or do such and such; and inevitable or probable that one thing should follow another.
