ABSTRACT
Prologue Among the things invented by the ancients To inculcate good manners to the world Nothing there is gives more delight and joy Than fables well presented on the stage. And though the kinds of these are various, Among them certainly the foremost place And greatest praise is held by Tragedy, Whether it have a doleful end or happy; A poem that in gravity exceeds Whatever was composed in Greece or Rome. 10 In it are imitated real actions With such solemnity and such decorum As pity springs from them and also horror, Purging our mortal souls from every vice And making us towards virtue only yearn By seeing how those persons meet their end Who are not either wholly good or bad.
