10
There is also a kind of fictitious discovery which depends on a false inference on the part of the audience, for instance in Odysseus the False Messenger, he said he would recognize the bow, which as a matter of fact he had not seen, but to assume that he really would reveal himself by this means is a false inference.The text is obscure, and our ignorance of the play or rhapsody adds to the darkness, but the reference may be to the ruse, common in detective stories, of misleading the audience by false clues in order to make the final revelation more effective.
11
Best of all is the discovery which is brought about directly by the incidents, the surprise being produced by means of what is likely—take the scene in Sophocles’ Oedipus or in the Iphigeneia—for it is likely enough that she should want to send a letter. These are the only discovery scenes which dispense with artificial tokens, like necklaces.The classical example of these tokens in English drama is the strawberry mark on the left arm in Box and Cox. But Aristotle seems here to use tokens in a wider sense than at the beginning of the chapter and to include not only birthmarks, necklaces, etc., but any statement or action which may be used as a sign in the scene of Discovery.
12
In the second place come those that are the result of inference.
1
In constructing plots and completing the effect by the help of dialogue the poet should, as far as possible, keep the scene before his eyes. Only thus by getting the picture as clear as if he were present at the actual event, will he find what is fitting and detect contradictions.
