C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Comic Poet’s Grievances
By Antiphanes (Fourth Century B.C.)
H
Of tragic poets! First, because the tale
Is perfectly to the spectators known,
Ere aught is said. The poet only need
Remind them: for if I say “Œdipus,”
Why, all the rest they know….
Besides, when they have nothing more to say,
Then like a finger their machine they raise,
And that suffices for their audience.
Nothing of this have we, but everything
We must invent: new names, each circumstance,
Present conditions, the catastrophe,
The episodes. If one be overlooked,
Chremes and Pheidon hiss us from the stage.