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Prologue   /prˈoʊlɑg/   Listen
Prologue

noun
1.
An introduction to a play.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Prologue" Quotes from Famous Books



... trouble to refer to, much less to collate, any of the previous Folios or Quartos. It seems, however, while the volume containing Romeo and Juliet was in the press he learned the existence of a Quarto edition, for he has printed the prologue given in the Quartos and omitted in the Folios, at the end of the play. He did not take the trouble to compare the text of the Quarto with that of F4. When any emendation introduced by him in the text coincides with the reading of F1, as sometimes happens, we are convinced ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... feelings were in harmony with the new Longinianism of boldness and bigness, cultivated in one way by Dennis and in another by Addison himself in later Spectators. The tribute to the old writers in Rowe's Prologue to Jane Shore (1713) is of course not simply the result of ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe

... hwt: for this interjectional formula opening a poem, cf. Andreas, Daniel, Juliana, Exodus, Fata Apost., Dream of the Rood, and the "Listenith lordinges!" of mediaeval lays.—E. Cf. Chaucer, Prologue, ed. Morris, ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... Spiritus, et tres unum sunt.' This most important word Sicut clearly shows how the disputed passage, from having been a Gloss crept into the text. And on the first page prior to the Seven Catholic Epistles is the Prologue of St. Jerome, bearing his name in uncials, which Porson and other learned men think spurious. See Porson's Letters to Travis, p. 290."—Bp. Butler's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various

... complete in itself, is also the first of a trilogy, the scope of which is suggested in the prologue. The story of scientific discovery has its own epic unity—a unity of purpose and endeavour—the single torch passing from hand to hand through the centuries; and the great moments of science when, after long ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... not exactly plunge into the middle of things; but he spends comparatively little time on the preliminaries of the ironical Prologue to the "very illustrious drinkers," on the traditionally necessary but equally ironical genealogy of the hero, on the elaborate verse amphigouri of the Fanfreluches Antidotees, and on the mock scientific discussion of extraordinarily prolonged periods of pregnancy. Without these, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... that Absolon knocked than that he coughed at the window. Surrye or Russye, indifferent which. Cambuscan is Caius canne. "That may not saye naye," better than "there may no wighte say naye." Theophraste, not Paraphraste. The wife of Bath's Prologue taken from the author of Policraticon. Country, not Couentry. Maketh, not waketh. Hugh of Lincoln. "Where the sunne is in his ascensione," agood reading. Kenelm slain by Queen Drida. Master Speight mistaketh his almanack. The degrees of the signe are misreckoned, not the signe itself. ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne

... the prologue I was asked to write. I did not see the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of marriage—saw many abroad, Greek and Catholic—one, at home, many years ago. There be some strange phrases in the prologue (the exhortation), which made me turn away, not to laugh in the face of the surpliceman. Made one blunder, when I joined the hands of the happy—rammed their left hands, by mistake, into one another. Corrected it—bustled back to the altar-rail, and said 'Amen.' Portsmouth ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... windows blazed with light. People were flocking in. As they entered, a young lady began to play on an out-of-tune piano, which Judge Josiah Saunders had presented to the church. She played a Moody-and-Sankey hymn as a sort of prologue, although nobody sang it. It was a curious custom which prevailed in the Amity church. A Moody-and-Sankey hymn was always played in evening meetings instead of the morning ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... great things of life are simple to understand and easy to express, the littlenesses require a vast number of details to explain them. The foregoing events, which may be called a sort of prologue to this bourgeois drama, in which we shall find passions as violent as those excited by great interests, required this long introduction; and it would have been difficult for any faithful historian to shorten the account of ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... houses were often up a flight of stairs, and consisted of a single large room with "tables set apart for divers topics." There is a reference to this in the prologue to a comedy of 1681 ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... change from the vaudeville show of the restless personal ambitions of vindictive fools and greedy scoundrels, the mischief and adventures of half-witted geniuses and licensed rogues that have been figures of the prologue. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... descend to the confines of casuistry in ethics.(270) In the discussion of them Abelard collects passages from the scriptures and from the fathers in favour of two distinctly opposite solutions. He has however prefixed a prologue to the work, which ought to be taken as the explanation of his object.(271) He insists in it on the difficulty of rightly understanding the scriptures or the fathers, and refers it to eight different causes;(272) advising that when these considerations ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... no Bush, they say, And I, No Prologue such a Play: The Makers therefore did forbeare To have that Grace prefixed here. But cease here (Censure) least the Buyer Hold thee in this a vaine Supplyer. My office is to set it forth When ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... The prologue goes off as smoothly as if it had been played for a hundred nights. Miss Terry, clad in Rosamond's magnificent robes, sits in the stalls and watches the effect of the lights upon each group. Sometimes ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... of Adoptionist. It did not think of Jesus as a man who had become divine, but as a God who had become human. Moreover, an identification of this pre-existent being with the Logos of the philosopher was gradually approached in the later Epistles, and finally made in the Prologue ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake

... the book opens with an extract from a prologue written by the excellent Dr. Aiken, the brother of Mrs. Barbauld, upon the opening of the Theater ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... coming: this was but the prologue to a whole tragedy of the oracular. It was clear enough that I was not wanted, and as I did not feel called upon to pose as the sole champion of the cause of Truth among so many, I took my leave there ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... the language of fairies. He tells her that fairies are not small things, but quite the reverse. After a few sentences have been spoken the prologue comes to an end, and the curtain rises upon the scene of the play, the drawing-room of the Duke. Here is seated the Rev. Cyril Smith, a young clergyman, "an honest man and not an ass." To him enters the Duke's Secretary, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... PROLOGUE. Now, for as much as in these latter days, Throughout the whole world in every land, Vice doth increase, and virtue decays, Iniquity having the upper hand; We therefore intend, good gentle audience, A pretty short interlude to play at this present, Desiring your leave and quiet silence, ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without, which snapped at the window-panes and breathed into the chimney strange low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... carried on openly and unchecked. Many English writers refer to this extraordinary desecration of a consecrated building, and from them we learn that the trading carried on in Paul's Walk included simony and chaffering for benefices. Chaucer, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, when describing the ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to call to mind the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. The right comment upon it is Dryden's: "It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty."[93] And again: "He is a perpetual fountain of good sense." It is by a large, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... by the universal cry of the town, nemine contradicente but the conceited poet. He says in his prologue that 'this is the last the town must expect from him;' he had done himself a kindness had he taken his leave before." He then describes the success of Southerne's Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery, and concludes, "This kind usage will encourage desponding ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... first entered upon my office. If God will not bear it up, let it sink!—but if a duty be incumbent upon me, to bear my testimony to it, (which in modesty I have hitherto forborne,) I am, in some measure, necessitated thereunto: and therefore that will be the prologue to my discourse. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... below, all "Romans of Rome," and the Queen Mother was on her balcony. But the orator was worthy of his audience, and his theme. He had the past for his prologue, and the future for his epilogue. Caesar, Brutus, Cicero, the story of the old oppression from which the world had freed itself after agelong tribulation, and then a picture of the new tyranny that was sweeping ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... been told by Savage, that of the prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were added ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... when first they parted: by the tree Of knowledge he must pass; there he her met, Scarce from the tree returning; in her hand A bough of fairest fruit, that downy smiled, New gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused. To him she hasted; in her face excuse Came prologue, and apology too prompt; Which, with bland words at will, she thus addressed. Hast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay? Thee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived Thy presence; agony of love till now ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... with Gavin Douglas's description of a Scottish winter in his Prologue to the twelfth book of the AEneid will be struck by the resemblance to this passage both in subject and manner. It is doubtful whether Burns knew more of Douglas than the motto to Tam o' Shanter, but from the days of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... oft from chance opinion takes its rise, And into reputation multiplies. This prologue finds pat applications In men of all this world's vocations; For fashion, prejudice, and party strife, Conspire to crowd poor justice out of life. What can you do to counteract This reckless, rushing cataract? 'Twill have its course for good ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... he is simply one aspect of infinite and eternal Nature. Save for a few slight traces of rhetorical awkwardness, Mr. Schilling's expository style is remarkable for its force and clearness; the arrangement of the essay into Prologue, Body, and Epilogue is especially ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... hydraulics— consisting, in fact, of spirits and water, sweetened with songs and spiced with witches. It is, we are informed by the official announcements, "a romantic burletta of witchcraft, in two acts, and a prologue, with entirely new scenery, dresses, and peculiar appointments, imagined by, and introduced under the direction of, Mr. Yates." Now, any person, entirely unprejudiced with a taste for devilry and free from hydrophobia, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various

... and went to tell his master the contemptuous speech. The result may be anticipated. Dare refused the much-coveted animal, and Meav proceeded to make good her claim by force of arms. But this is only the prologue of the drama; the details would fill a volume. It must suffice to say, that the bulls had a battle of their own. Finnbheannach and Donn Chuailgne (the Leinster bull) engaged in deadly combat, which is described with the wildest flights of poetic diction.[86] The poor ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... free, they turn their backs to you and thrice strew ashes on your head. Farewell, Berlin, may I never see you again!" [Goethe, in fact, never visited Berlin again, though he was often invited there, particularly when the new theatre was opened, with a poetic prologue written by himself. They inaugurated the festivity with Goethe's "Iphigenia," the first representation, and Prince Radzwill urgently invited the poet, through Count Bruhl, to visit Berlin at this time, and reside in his palace. But Goethe refused; ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... to be put on and laid aside at will, like a garment. Granted that these same doctrines of Zoroaster are faint adumbrations of the Hebrew creed, the Gordian knot is by no means loosed. That prologue in 'Faust' horrified you yesterday; yet, upon my word, I don't see why; for very evidently it is taken from Job, and Faust is but an ideal Job, tempted in more subtle manner than by the loss of flocks, houses, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... descriptions of these persons, and make them talk as they did talk, his delineations are of inestimable value historically. He has been faithfully true. Like all great masters of the epic art, he doubtless drew them from the life; each, given in the outlines of the prologue, is a speaking portrait: even the horses they ride are as true to nature as those in the pictures ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... pioneer, prodrome|, prodromos[obs3], prodromus[obs3], outrider; leader, bellwether; herald, harbinger; foreboding; dawn; avant-courier, avant-garde, bellmare[obs3], forelooper[obs3], foreloper[obs3], stalking-horse, voorlooper[Afrikaans], voortrekker[Afrikaans]. prelude, preamble, preface, prologue, foreword, avant-propos[Fr], protasis[obs3], proemium[obs3], prolusion[obs3], proem, prolepsis[Gram], prolegomena, prefix, introduction; heading, frontispiece, groundwork; preparation &c. 673; overture, exordium[Lat], symphony; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Cauterets left a deep impression upon the mind of Margaret is evidenced by the work upon which her literary fame rests. The scene selected for the prologue of the Heptameron is Cauterets and the surrounding country; still it is evident that the book was not commenced upon the occasion referred to, for in the prologue Margaret alludes to historical events which ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... shoulde resume our Studdies. Felt loath to comply, but did soe neverthelesse, and afterwards we walked manie Miles, to visit some poor Folk. This Evening, Mr. Agnew read us the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. How lifelike are the Portraitures! I mind me that Mr. Milton shewed me the Talbot Inn, that Day we crost the River with ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... the wholly superfluous pains of urging you as a preliminary to read the "turn-over of cover." Don't! All you will find there is a synopsis of the plot, just sufficient to destroy the slender thread of your interest in its development. And I must record a protest against the entirely unneeded Prologue, in which total strangers sit round at a churchyard picnic on the graves of the real protagonists, and speculate as to their history. The tale itself is placed in Sussex (why this invidious partiality of our novelists?), ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... fault nor our custom; we protest against it. But, pray remember, I accuse nobody; for as I would not make a " watery discourse," so I would not put too much vinegar into it; nor would I raise the reputation of my own art, by the diminution or ruin of another's. And so much for the prologue to what ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... people of England against them, appeared in 1662.[46] It is somewhat in the hard style of invective, which Cleveland applied to the Scottish nation; yet Dryden thought it worth while to weave the same verses into the prologue and epilogue of the tragedy of "Amboyna," a piece written in 1673, with the same kind ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... suggested the verses I have introduced; but not being blessed with the Butler's happy art of rhyming, I am indebted for them, except the seventh and eleventh stanzas in the first of his poetic stories, to the author of the prologue. ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... helpful patterns of all sorts; and PUNCHINELLO, intending to offer the most advantages, expects to become so necessary to the economical housewife and the prudent bread-winner that no family will be able to do without him. So, with no further prologue, we will present our readers with some valuable hints in regard to the use that can be made of things that often lie about the house gathering dust—idle clutter and of no service to any body. The first hint, we know, if followed up, will be found of the greatest advantage to all, yielding great ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various

... was performed, at the Theatre, Dorset Garden, her play. The False Count, or a New Way to Play an Old Game. The prologue attacks the Whigs most furiously, and the epilogue, spoken by Mrs. Barry, is very indecent. The plot of this play, or rather farce, is very improbable, and the language is more than free. Julia, in love with Don Carlos, ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... fall upon us in its full force so that no one could ignore it or avoid action with regard to it. But I now reach the beginning of the drama which is the matter of this history, and to which all I have written is uneventful prologue. We young people of the Faringfield house (for I was still as much of that house as of my own) had concerned ourselves little with the news from London and Boston, of the concentration of British troops in ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... atmosphere of old Vienna is at once convincing and amusing. But the play is too sprawling, too scattered, to get firm hold on the reader. There are seventy-four specifically indicated characters, not to mention groups of dumb figures. And while the title page speaks of five acts and a prologue, there are in reality seventeen distinct scenes. Each scene may be dramatically valuable, but the constant passage from place to place, from one set of characters to another, ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... were also notable revivals of Randolph's The Jealous Lovers, and Fletcher's The Maid in the Mill. The two Companies amalgamated in the autumn, opening at the Theatre Royal, 16 November, for which occasion a special Prologue and Epilogue were written by Dryden. 4 December, Dryden and Lee's famous tragedy, The Duke of Guise, had a triumphant first night. It will be remembered that Mrs. Behn is writing of incidents which took place on 6 January, 1683, Twelfth Night, so 'the last new plays' ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... and awake the next morning with as much fair wit as nature has blessed thee withal. Only one thing I will warn thee, good Adam, that henceforth and for ever, when thou railest at me for being somewhat hot at hand, and rather too prompt to out with poniard or so, thy admonition shall serve as a prologue to the memorable adventure of the switching of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... from lower spheres of life to higher ones, from the sensuous to the spiritual, from enjoyment to work, from creed to deed, from self to humanity—this is the moving thought of Goethe's completed Faust. The keynote is struck in the "Prologue in Heaven." Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason, the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God's own lips, that the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... zero. Every hour brings fresh intelligence of the movements of the rebels, or patriots—the last term is doubtful, yet it may be correct. When they first opened the theatre at Botany Bay, Barrington spoke the prologue, which ended ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... of "The Villain Still Pursued Her" is an excellent illustration of this point. When this very funny travesty was first produced, it did not have a prologue. It began almost precisely as the full-stage scene begins now, and the audience did not know whether to take it seriously or not. The instant he watched the audience at the first performance, the author sensed the problem he had to face. He knew, then, that he would have to tell the next ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... Prologue The Nuts of Knowledge Immortality The Hermit The Great Breath The Divine Vision The Burning Glass A Vision of Beauty Rest The Earth Breath Divine Visitation The Master Singer Aphrodite Illusion Babylon Alter Ego Krishna Symbolism Sung on a By-Way The Hunter The Vision ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell

... the fashion of the period, the star had to recite a prologue. An extract from it ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... It is only possible to excuse the milk-and-watery treatment of the subject through the general mental cowardice and ignorance in intellectual matters which is so predominant in this country. I find a comfort in the hope that this article is the prologue to able exegetical works, combined with a concrete statement of the absurdity, the untruth, and untenableness of the present English conception of inspiration. Do not call me to account too sharply for this hope, or it is likely to evaporate simply ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... that she had just heard of the fight at Gettysburg, he would feel certain that the words were written a few days after that great battle, even if there were no date anywhere in the manuscript. In the same way, when the Prologue of Shakespeare's Henry V alludes to the fact that Elizabeth's general (the Earl of Essex) is in Ireland quelling a rebellion, we know that this was written between April and September of 1599, the period during which Essex actually was in Ireland. Similarly, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... hardly have been well-known in 1811, or Dr. Bliss would scarcely have quoted in full the most familiar character in his Prologue; but I could not find courage to excise, or lay a profane hand ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... Fielding's prologue to his revised Author's Farce (1734), spoken by Mrs. Clive, compares the settled, prosperous former days at Drury Lane with those of 1734, when "... alas! how alter'd is our Case!/ I view with Tears this poor deserted Place."[11] With few exceptions, the "place" continued ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive

... had had a shield in his hand to receive the fiery darts, and unless the foundation stone had been too strong for any thing to make an impression upon it, you would have seen the whole in conflagration. But alas! this was but the prologue, or a foretaste of what was to follow; for the darkness speedily became seven times blacker, and Belial himself appeared upon the densest cloud, and around him were his choicest warriors, both terrestrial and infernal, to receive and ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... for whom this Prologue was written, was in those days a popular actor in Edinburgh. He had other claims on Burns: he had been the friend as well as comrade of poor Fergusson, and possessed some poetical talent. He died in Edinburgh, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... to the day, So be all earthly regions to your sway! Be as the sun to day, the day to night, For from your beams Europe shall borrow light. Mirth drown your bosom, fair delight your mind, And may our pastime your contentment find. [Exit Prologue. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... Broken Heart./ In the Book of Job this intervenes between the Story Prologue, which is prose, and the main body of the poem, which takes a dramatic form. Job breaks the silence to dilate, with lyrical elaboration, upon the situation of utter ruin which is to be the starting-point of the dramatic discussion. Hence the title ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... prologue to this play, which is said to be founded on a known true story, and exhibits various witchcrafts practised upon the neighbourhood by one Mother Sawyer, whose portrait with that of her familiar (a dog, called Tom, which is one of the dramatis personae,) is in the title-page. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... at an old man recording the amount of talent they exhibited, nor the zeal they manifested in fully carrying out the plan proposed for the public amusement and the welfare of the poor. I recollect there was an admirably written prologue, by Dr. Shepherd, which was as admirably delivered by Mr. J. H. Parr, in the character of Stephen Harrowby, a character which he personated in the play with all the finish of an experienced actor, his exertions drawing forth frequent and loud applause. Dr. Ollapod ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... the inhabitants of Borneo and Luzon." Pardo de Tavera says after quoting the first part of the above: "Lord Stanley's opinion is dispassionate and not at all at variance with historical truth." The same author says also that Blumentritt's prologue and Rizal's notes in the latter's edition of Morga have so aroused the indignation of the Spaniards that several ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... established reputation. He therefore sent this Tragedy to him, with a few verses, in which he desired his correction. Mr. Hill who was a man of unbounded humanity, and most accomplished politeness, readily complied with his request; and wrote the prologue and epilogue, in which he touches the circumstances [Transcriber's note: 'cirumstances' in original] of the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... be as a notice in a railway station. The book itself, however, is intriguing in spite of its gloominess. The grandfather of Jane and John-Andrew Vaguener committed a most cold-blooded murder—this in a prologue. Then, when we get to the real story, we find Jane tapping out popular fiction at an amazing pace, and her brother, John-Andrew, living on the proceeds thereof. Jane is noisy, vulgar, and successful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various

... upon this began to vociferate "Prologue! prologue! prologue!" when Wignell, finding them resolute, without betraying any emotion, pause, or change in his voice and manner, proceeded as if it were part of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... to the killing of Abel, and is opened by Cain's ploughboy with a sort of prologue in which he warns the spectators to be silent. Cain then enters with a plough and team, and quarrels with the boy for refusing to drive the team. Presently Abel comes in, and wishes Cain good-speed, who meets his kind word with an unmentionable ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... address—which poor Charles was restless to have used. I fitted him with an Epilogue of the same calibre with his Prologue, but I thought it would be going a little too far to publish mine. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... is in the way of prologue. On an evening rather later in the same week, Mr Edward Dunning was returning from the British Museum, where he had been engaged in research, to the comfortable house in a suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... superior. James V. seems first to have introduced, in addition to the militia furnished from these sources, the service of a small number of mercenaries, who formed a body-guard, called the Foot-Band. The satirical poet, Sir David Lindsay (or the person who wrote the prologue to his play of the Three Estaites), has introduced Finlay of the Foot-Band, who after much swaggering upon the stage is at length put to flight by the Fool, who terrifies him by means of a sheep's skull upon a pole. I have rather chosen to give them the harsh features ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... The MSS. give this as a prologue to the de deo Socratis. It belongs, however, manifestly ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... The prologue to this somewhat dramatic history was of the simplest. The affair came to a climax, if one may speak metaphorically, in fire and sword and high passion, but it began like the month of March. Mr Bostock (a younger brother of the senior partner in the famous firm of Bostocks, drapers, ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... invent so perplexing a mixture of savage barbarism with modern refinement. Savonarola's denunciations[1] and Villani's descriptions of a despot read like passages from Plato's Republic, like the most pregnant of Aristotle's criticisms upon tyranny. The prologue to the sixth book of Matteo Villani's Chronicle may be cited as a fair specimen of the judgment passed by contemporary Italian thinkers upon their princes (Libro Sesto, cap. i.): 'The crimes of despots always hinder and often neutralize ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... between Pope and Addison. An attempt to reconcile them only made matters worse; and at last the breach was rendered irremediable by Pope's writing the famous character of his rival, afterwards inserted in the Prologue to the Satires,—a portrait drawn with the perfection of polished malice and bitter sarcasm, but which seems more a caricature than a likeness. Whatever Addison's faults, his conduct to Pope did not deserve such a return. The whole passage is only one of those painful ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay. But the authors of the songs of the people have been forgotten. In a droll poem entitled "Cockelby's Sow," ascribed to the reign of James I., is enumerated a considerable catalogue of contemporary lyrics. In the prologue to Gavin Douglas' translation of the AEneid of Virgil, written not later than 1513, and in the celebrated "Complaynt of Scotland," published in 1549, further catalogues of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... brought the manuscript with him; whereupon, the young gentleman said he did take it along with him, in the hope to benefit it by Mr. Ward's judgment and learning, and with the leave of the company he would read the Prologue thereof. To which we all agreeing, he read what follows, which I copy from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... color. Ready at hand was Aunt Dilsey; he would make her, unwittingly so far as she kenned, a supporting member of the cast. She would never know it, but she would play an accessory part, small but important, in his prologue. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... Hercules on Mount Oeta (cf. notes on v, iv, 100 and 109). Hence the technique of the work is largely of the semi-Senecan type with which Kyd and his school had familiarized the English stage. Thus Bussy's opening monologue serves in some sort as a Prologue; the narrative by the Nuntius in Act II, i, 35-137, is in the most approved classical manner; an Umbra or Ghost makes its regulation entrance in the last Act, and though the accumulated horrors of ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... that of Menander. It is very commonly reported that Terence was assisted in his works by Laelius and Scipio [934], with whom he lived in such great intimacy. He gave some currency to this report himself, nor did he ever attempt to defend himself against it, except in a light way; as in the prologue ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... happening, which revolutionised all her outlook. For that the unseen presence, consciousness of which had come to be so constant a quantity in her action and her thought, should thus declare itself in visible form, be materialised, become concrete, and that instantly, without prologue or preparation, projecting itself wholesale—so to speak—into the comfortable commonplaces of a Sunday luncheon—after her slightly uproarious race home with a perfectly normal schoolboy, from morning church too—affected ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... very well for Lamartine to explain, in his original prologue, that the touching, fascinating and pathetic story of Raphael was the experience of another man. It is well known that these feeling pages are but transcripts of an episode of his own heart-history. That the tale is one of almost feminine sentimentality is ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... this letter in Latin has been consulted, inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grinaeus, published at Bath in 1532. The letter contains a spirited narrative of four voyages which he asserts to have made to the New World. In the prologue he excuses the liberty of addressing king Rene by calling to his recollection the ancient intimacy of their youth, when studying the rudiments of science together, under the paternal uncle of the voyager; and adds that if the present narrative ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... as Dr. Grennell's fine voice rolled out the last lines of the "Prologue." "Now—" and the curtain went up ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... I have maundered so slowly through the prologue. I have it! it was simply to say to you, in the form of introduction rife through the Middle West: "Shake ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... take up the voluminous Some account of the reverend John Genest; examine the mass of commendatory verses in the twenty-one-volume editions of Shakspere; examine also the commendatory verses in the nine-volume edition of Ben. Jonson. Here is the result: Langbaine calls attention to the prologue in question as an excellent prologue, and Genest repeats what had been said one hundred and forty years before by Langbaine. There is not the slightest ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... prologue to the tragedy. Bear with me while I relate it. (Mr. Braham takes out a handkerchief, unfolds it slowly; crashes it in his nervous hand, and throws it on the table). Laura grew up in her humble southern home, a beautiful creature, the joy, of the house, the pride of the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... 18: It is entirety Grecian)—This means that the scene is in Greece, and that it is of the kind called "palliata," as representing the manners of the Greeks, who wore the "pallium," or outer cloak; whereas the Romans wore the "toga." In the Prologue, Terence states that he borrowed it from ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... what the old chair-maker had come to say, but, in the prologue of the struggle before him, he was unwittingly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... in the last and longest segment of the poem that its real power and interest are to be found. Its theme is the second coming of Christ and his experiences in lands professing his religion. In a scene, compared with which the Prologue in Heaven of Faust is decorous, God the Father ironically suggests that the Son would find scope for his friendly feeling to the human kind if he were to pay a visit to the earth. Alighting on the mountain where Satan ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... was opened under the attractive title of "Academy of Polite Science." Here a grand ovation was given to General Washington, "Eugenie," a play of Beaumarchais, being acted, with a fine patriotic prologue. The young women were furbishing up their neglected French, or studying it anew, and the French minister was paid all the honors of the town. The affection and gratitude shown the French allies were one of the features ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... are nothing in history. Men die, man is immortal, practically, even on this earth. We are so impatient, —and we are always watching for the last scene of the tragedy. Now I humbly opine that the drop is only about falling on the first act, or perhaps only the prologue. This act or prologue will be called, in after days, War for the status quo. Such enthusiasm, heroism, and manslaughter as status quo could inspire, has, I trust, been not entirely in vain, but it has ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Barbour be the author of the Legends, then (so does one conclusion hang upon another) he is the author of a Gospel story with the later life of the Virgin, described in the prologue to the Legends and in other passages as a book "of the birth of Jhesu criste" and one "quhare-in I recordit the genology of our ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... literature that gives young people inspiration, but too much of it, like college life, ends with a commencement. "And then they were married and lived happily ever after"—is the familiar closing as the novelist rings down the curtain after reciting only the prologue in the life drama of his two lovers. We need more literature that does not end with the wedding march, but which gives young people the successful solution of the problems after marriage. Some such is ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... Prologue, a wonderful piece of music, Tonio the Fool announces to the public the deep tragic sense which often is hidden behind a farce, and prepares them for the sad end of the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... Will-o'-wisps, which in this point happily is dated,—26th-27th April, 1776,—he had come to Ferney, with proper introduction to Voltaire; and here (after severe excision of the flabby parts, but without other change) is credible account of what he saw and heard. In Three Scenes; with this Prologue,—as to Costume, which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... termed the prologue to the grand tragedy which was about to be performed in an amphitheatre of many square miles, and to the catastrophe of which we looked forward with an anxiety that had risen to so high a pitch, because, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... my children, that you will think that the prologue is over long for the play; but the foundations must be laid before the building is erected, and a statement of this sort is a sorry and a barren thing unless you have a knowledge of the folk concerned. Be patient, then, while I speak to you of the old friends ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... goes on, is his meeting in Switzerland with Francesca, the wife of a rich Italian, whom he eventually wins to love him and to promise marriage when she is free and he has acquired wealth and fame. All the details of the prologue are those of Balzac's first relations with Madame Hanska. The development of the novel, in which Philomene de Watteville falls in love with Savarus, surprises his secret attachment to Francesca, intercepts his letters to her, and ruins his hopes, is less cleverly told. Savarus' retirement ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue to a ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... the ancient and modern prefaces of the several codes, in the fourth volume of the Historians of France. The original prologue to the Salic law expresses (though in a foreign dialect) the genuine spirit of the Franks more forcibly than the ten books of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... Knowledge he must pass, there he her met, Scarse from the Tree returning; in her hand 850 A bough of fairest fruit that downie smil'd, New gatherd, and ambrosial smell diffus'd. To him she hasted, in her face excuse Came Prologue, and Apologie to prompt, Which with bland words at will she thus addrest. Hast thou not wonderd, Adam, at my stay? Thee I have misst, and thought it long, depriv'd Thy presence, agonie of love till now Not felt, nor ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... it was a prologue to that hospitable and truly polite reception which we found at Rasay. In a little while arrived Mr Donald M'Queen himself; a decent minister, an elderly man with his own black hair, courteous, and rather ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... who remarks that, "there is not a new philosophy nor a freshly named science but what deems, in the ignorance of its raw beginnings, that it will either explode the Church as false or set her aside as doting" (Bl. Sac. Prologue). Indeed the world is always striving to withdraw men and women from their allegiance to the Church, through appeals to its superior judgment and more enlightened experience; and philosophy and history and ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... spangles, and mischievous peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would have sustained it had he been present. Adone, his understudy, took his place. My own share in the mummery was humble and confusing. In toga and cothurnus I had to read a pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the audience. I don't believe that I was more thankful than they were when I had done. The less I say about the rest of the evening and night the better. The people of Certaldo more ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... consisted of short dramatic representations of many single passages of the sacred story. The whole would occupy about three days. It began with the Creation, and ended with the Judgment. That for which the city of Coventry was famous consists of forty-two subjects, with a long prologue. Composed by ecclesiastics, the plays would seem to have been first represented by them only, although afterwards it was not always considered right for the clergy to be concerned with them. The hypocritical Franciscan friar, in "Piers ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... that day on the hills, and much has befallen; but the prologue is the kernel of my play, and the curtain which rose after that hour revealed things less worthy of chronicle. Why should I tell of how my trade prospered mightily, and of the great house we built at Middle Plantation; of my quarrels with Nicholson, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... to be persuaded against his knowledge of himself. They insist on his hypocrisy, he on his righteousness. Nor may we forget that herein lies not any overweening on the part of Job, for the poem prepares us for the right understanding of the man by telling us in the prologue, that God said thus to the accuser of men: 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?' God gives Job into Satan's hand with confidence in the result; and at the end ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... nothing. I've a prologue here, He'll never tack his bottle of oil to this: No man is blest in every single thing. One is of noble birth, ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... like him in the world; in the next stage, he is like an ape, and dances, jests, and talks nonsense, knowing not what he is doing and saying; when thoroughly drunken, he wallows in the mire like a sow.[63] To this legend Chaucer evidently alludes in the Prologue to ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... more difficult to please than the public," returned M. Lecoq. "I must have veritable comedies, or real dramas. My theatre is —society. My actors laugh honestly, or weep with genuine tears. A crime is committed—that is the prologue; I reach the scene, the first act begins. I seize at a glance the minutest shades of the scenery. Then I try to penetrate the motives, I group the characters, I link the episodes to the central fact, I bind in a bundle all the circumstances. The action soon reaches ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... great work its due appreciation we must take it as a whole, as the profound genius of Fra Angelico had conceived it. Wishing to give it the unity of a dramatic poem, he placed at the beginning and at the end, like a prologue and an epilogue, two symbolic figures, in the last of which the seven branched candlestick serves as a support to the Old ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... mingling in his nature of brutality and sensitiveness, of animal and spiritual, and knowing something of the unstable character of Althea Fenimore, may more justly, I think, than he, sketch out the miserable prologue of the drama. That she was madly, recklessly in love with him there can be no doubt. Nor can there be doubt that unconsciously she fired the passion in him. The deliberate, cold-blooded seducer of his friend's daughter, such as Boyce, in his confession, made ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... fortune which seemed to serve Addison at every turn reached its climax in the applause which greeted the production of 'Cato.' The motive of this tragedy, constructed on what were then held to be classic lines, is found in the two lines of the Prologue: it was an ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... author of several theological books, and he also wrote the prologue to the second edition of the 'Great Bible,' printed in 1540. His works were collected and arranged by H. Jenkyns, and published in four volumes at Oxford in 1833. There is a portrait of the Archbishop, at the age of fifty-seven, by G. Fliccius in the National Portrait ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... the inauguration of his statue in bronze by Schaller of Munich, which is fixed for the 25th; secondly, on the evening of the 25th, Handel's "Messiah"; thirdly, on the 28th, the anniversary of Goethe's birth, a remarkably successful Prologue made, ad hoc, for that day by Dingelstedt, followed by the first performance of Wagner's "Lohengrin." This work, which you certainly will not have the opportunity of hearing so soon anywhere else, on account of the special position of the composer, and the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... early days of little Olaf, whose life began in a series of adventures which were the prologue to a most stirring and active life. Few men have had a more adventurous career than he, his whole life being one of romance, activity and peril. He became a leading hero of the saga writers, who have left us many striking stories of his young ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... large folio sheets separately mounted and measuring eighteen by ten inches. It commences with a prologue, with the arms of Portugal supported by two savages, having clubs and shields. Outside the inner frame are three scenes: (1) wild animals in combat; (2) a sea-nymph being rescued; (3) a fight among sylvan savages. Next comes a ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... year of expectation, we shall see the long prologue to the tragic and memorable 1588 slowly enacting; the same triangular contest between the three Henrys and their partizans still proceeding. We shall see the misguided and wretched Valois lamenting over his victories, and rejoicing over his defeats; forced into hollow alliance with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... poses; he added to it; he took away from it; he gave it a child's face, preserving the one striking expression; he made it that of a woman—of an elderly, grave woman. Why, what was this? Barbara Golding! He would not spoil the development of the drama, of which he now held the fluttering prologue, by any blunt treatment; he would touch this and that nerve gently to see what past connection ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... whit; I have a device to make all well; write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and for more better assurance tell them, that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare



Words linked to "Prologue" :   dramatic composition, dramatic work, prologize, introduction



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