4
There is a better and a worse way of using these tokens; for instance Odysseus, by means of his wound, was discovered in one way by the nurse and in another way by the swine-herds.Hom. Od. 19.386ff., 205ff. The first came about automatically, the second was a deliberate demonstration to prove the point. Aristotle here distinguishes between a discovery inevitably produced by the logic of events (e.g. it was inevitable or at least probable that Odysseus, arriving as a strange traveller, should be washed by Eurycleia, and that she should thus see the old scar on his thigh and discover his identity) and a discovery produced by a deliberate declaration (e.g. Odysseus’s declaration of his identity to Eumaeus). The latter kind is manufactured by the poet, not logically caused by what has gone before.
5
Discovery scenes constructed to prove the point are inartistic and so are all such scenes, but those are better which arise out of a reversal scene, as, for instance, in The Washing.Hom. Od. 19.392. See preceding note.
6
In the second place come those which are manufactured by the poet and are therefore inartistic. For instance, in the IphigeneiaEuripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris. See Aristot. Poet. 11.8, note. Orestes revealed himself. She was revealed to him through the letter,
7
but Orestes says himself what the poet wants and not what the plot requires. So this comes near to the fault already mentioned, for he might just as well have actually brought some tokens.To prove his identity Orestes mentions Pelops’ lance and other things from home, which is much the same as producing visible tokens. And there is the voice of the shuttleWhen Philomela’s tongue was cut out, she wove in embroidery the story of her rape by Tereus. Thus the facts were discovered to her sister, Procne, by deliberate demonstration. In Sophocles’ Tereus.
