If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face.

We cannot allow men to play the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,--least of all when making love or in labour.

They must not represent slaves, or bullies, or cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea.

A good or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible.

The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice.