aeschylus: (To Euripides) What are the qualities that you look for in a good poet?

euripides: Technical skill – and he should teach a lesson, make people into better citizens.

aeschylus: And if you have failed to do this? If you have presented good men, noble men, as despicable wretches, what punishment do you think you deserve?

dionysius: Death. No good asking him.

aeschylus: Well, now, look at the characters I left him. Fine, stalwart characters, larger than life, men who didn't shirk their responsibilities… I depicted men of valour, lion-hearted characters like Patrocles and Teucer, encouraging the audience to identify themselves with these heroes when the call to battle came. I didn't clutter my stage with harlots like Phaedra or Stheneboea. No one can say I have ever put an erotic female into any play of mine.

euripides: How could you? You've never met one.

aeschylus: And thank heaven for that. Whereas you and your household had only too much experience of Aphrodite, if I remember rightly.

dionysius: He's got you there Euripides. See what happened in your own home when you made other men's wives behave like that on stage.

euripides: And did I invent the story of Phaedra?

aeschylus: No, no, such things do happen. But the poet should keep quiet about them, not put them on the stage for everyone to copy.