Aristotle made a summary of the Homeric poem, because he wished to show how simple its construction really was, apart from the episodes. It is impossible, by any process of reduction and simplification, to get rid of the duality in _Beowulf_. It has many episodes, quite consistent with a general unity of action, but there is something more than episodes, there is a sequel. It is as if to the _Odyssey_ there had been added some later books telling in full of the old age of Odysseus, far from the sea, and his death at the hands of his son Telegonus. The adventure with the dragon is separate from the earlier adventures. It is only connected with them because the same person is involved in both. It is plain from Aristotle's words that the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ were in this, as in all respects, above and beyond the other Greek epics known to Aristotle. Homer had not to wait for _Beowulf_ to serve as a foil to his excellence. That was provided in the other epic poems of Greece, in the cycle of Troy, in the epic stories of Theseus and Heracles. It seems probable that the poem of _Beowulf_ may be at least as well knit as the _Little Iliad_, the Greek cyclic poem of which Aristotle names the principal incidents, contrasting its variety with the simplicity of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_.[41] [Footnote 41: [Greek: toigaroun ek men Iliados kai Odysseias mia tragôidia poieitai hekateras ê duo monai, ek de Kypriôn pollai kai tês mikras Iliados pleon oktô, hoion hoplôn krisis, Philoktêtês, Neoptolemos, Eurypylos, ptôcheia, Lakainai, Iliou persis, kai apoplous kai Sinôn kai Trôiades] (1459 b).] Indeed it is clear that the plan of _Beowulf_ might easily have been much worse, that is, more lax and diffuse, than it is. This meagre amount of praise will be allowed by the most grudging critics, if they will only think of the masses of French epic, and imagine the extent to which a French company of poets might have prolonged the narrative of the hero's life--the _Enfances_, the _Chevalerie_--before reaching the _Death of Beowulf_.