306. 340 AMANO I CHAPTER VI

340 AMANO I CHAPTER VI

than the thought as to how to get united, will certainly be contrary to the basic fact and, therefore, unpleasant. 4. Expression of an emotion at a wrong time. Suppose a person of heroic disposition is in love with a certain lady. But on a call of duty he has gone to the battle-field. A terrific battle is raging. Hundreds of the veteran soldiers have fallen. He is on the post of duty and, therefore, is intended to be presented as a hero and not as a lover. At such a time to represent the hero, without sufficient cause, as indulging in1 a talk of separation from his beloved is incongruous with the basic fact. 5. Intensification of the developed emotion. When a basic mental state has reached the point at which it is relishable to the audience through empathic reaction, its further intensification destroys it, just as intensive stimulation has a paralysing effect. 6. Incongruity of behaviour. Suppose two persons love each other: they have met on appointment. At such a time direct expression of the sex- desire, instead of its indirect expression through certain beautiful gestures and facial changes, is unæsthetic. These are incongruities from the point of view of the spectator and not from that of the historian. The aim of a poet is not to present facts as they are, but as they will give rise to æsthetic experience in the hearer or the spect- ator. He has, therefore, to modify the historical facts accordingly. On what lines the modification should be made, we shall show as we proceed. ACTION IN SANSKRIT DRAMA. The Sanskrit dramatist attempts to present primarily a basic mental state at its highest relishable pitch in an ideal 1. Dh, L., 163.