The description of a myth is traditionally something like this. It may, they say, be fictitious, but thoroughly practical for some contingency of actual life. Moreover it should be plausible. How may it be plausible? By our assigning to the characters actions that befit them. For example, if the contention be about beauty, let this be posed as a peacock; if some one is to be represented as wise, there let us pose a fox; if imitators of the actions of men, monkeys. Myths are sometimes to be expanded, sometimes to be told concisely. How? By now telling in bare narrative, and now feigning the words of the given characters. For example, “the monkeys in council deliberated on the necessity of settling in houses. When they had made up their minds to this end and were about to set to work, an old monkey restrained them, saying that they would more easily be captured if they were caught within enclosures.” Thus if you are concise; but if you wish to expand, proceed in this way. “The monkeys in council deliberated on the founding of a city; and one coming forward made a speech to the effect that they too must have a city. ‘For see,’ said he, ‘how fortunate in this regard are men. Not only does each of them have a house, but all going up together to public meeting or theater delight their souls with all manner of things to see and hear.’” Go on thus, dwelling on the incidents and saying that the decree was formally passed; and devise a speech for the old monkey. So much for this. The style of recital, they say, should be far from periods and near to pleasantness. The moral to be derived from the myth is sometimes put first, sometimes last. Orators[58] too appear to have used myth instead of example. TALE A tale, they say, is the setting forth of something that has happened or of something as if it had happened. Sometimes, however, authorities set the chria instead of this. A tale differs from a story as a poem from an extended poetical work. For a poem or a tale is about one thing, a poetical work or a story about several. Thus a poetical work is the _Iliad_, for example, or the _Odyssey_; but a poem is (one of the component parts, such as) the making of the shield, the visit to the shades, or the slaying of the suitors. And again, a story is the history of Herodotus or the composition of Thucydides; a tale is the incident of Arion or that of Alcmæon. The forms of the tale are said to be four: the mythical; the fictitious, which is also called the dramatic, as those of the tragic poets; the historical; and the political or personal. But for the present we consider the last.