Francisci Porti Cretensis... In omnes Sophoclis tragoedias prolegomena, ut vulgo vocantur

There was also another Sophocles, his grandson, himself a tragic poet, who taught XL 40 plays and won seven times.

I shall now touch briefly on the character of Sophocles: I will treat it more fully when explaining the parts of this play. He is grave and sublime, yet in such a way that he infuses gravity with pleasantness and sweetness. In moving the affections, although he is tragic, Euripides nevertheless wins. For Euripides, although far inferior in other things, is nevertheless tragikotatos most tragic, that is, the one who most moves the affections, even by the judgment of Aristotle in his Poetics. Quintilian adds that the poetry of Euripides approaches the oratorical genre more than that of Sophocles. But enough about the poet and his character; let us now treat of tragedy and its origin.

Tragedy, Comedy, and indeed all poetry flowed from nature and received its origin from her. For man is born and apt for imitation: a thing which can be easily seen even in infants, who learn by imitation to do whatever they do. Moreover, one imitates people in either joyful or sad situations. For the life of men turns on these two hinges, so to speak: prosperous circumstances (I say) or adverse ones. Therefore, those first men, following some the one and others the other according to the diversity of their talents, attempted to express them by imitating them. At first, this happened by chance, as Aristotle also testifies. Then, the matter being noted by those who were more skillful and possessed keenness of mind, both things—Comedy and Tragedy—grew little by little and made progress: first modest, then great. Its origin is believed to have flowed from divine matters. For the ancients were accustomed to make sacrifices for their crops and, with smoking altars and a goat brought forward, to sing a song in praise of Bacchus. They called this song tragodia tragedy apo tou tragou kai tes odes from the goat and the song, that is, from the goat, the enemy of the vines, and the song; either because the author of the song was gifted with a goat or a wineskin full of must, or because the singers smeared their faces with dregs before Aeschylus had invented masks. So that, when dregs are called truges in Greek, tragodia would be called as if trugodia dregs-song, a song which they sang and performed with their faces smeared with dregs, as Horace sings. In this manner, tragedy, having been invented in the Peloponnese, began to be performed, and the Dorians claim its origin for themselves (as Aristotle is the author in his Poetics). For they say dran to do for to perform, whence