As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed) an imitation of men worse
than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort of
fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which
is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake
or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for
instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted
without causing pain.

Though the successive changes in Tragedy and their authors are not
unknown, we cannot say the same of Comedy; its early stages passed
unnoticed, because it was not as yet taken up in a serious way. It was
only at a late point in its progress that a chorus of comedians was
officially granted by the archon; they used to be mere volunteers. It
had also already certain definite forms at the time when the record of
those termed comic poets begins. Who it was who supplied it with
masks, or prologues, or a plurality of actors and the like, has
remained unknown. The invented Fable, or Plot, however, originated in
Sicily, with Epicharmus and Phormis; of Athenian poets Crates was the
first to drop the Comedy of invective and frame stories of a general
and non-personal nature, in other words, Fables or Plots.

Epic poetry, then, has been seen to agree with Tragedy to thi.e.tent,
that of being an imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of
verse. It differs from it, however, (1) in that it is in one kind of
verse and in narrative form; and (2) in its length--which is due to
its action having no fixed limit of time, whereas Tragedy endeavours
to keep as far as possible within a single circuit of the sun, or
something near that. This, I say, is another point of difference
between them, though at first the practice in this respect was just
the same in tragedies as i.e.ic poems. They differ also (3) in their