Note 1726 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 5)
Reading edition
Cf. p. 542; Cynthia’s Revels, ind., where the boys struggle for the cloak; Woman Hater, prol. 1, ‘Gentlemen, Inductions are out of date, and a Prologue in Verse, is as stale as a black Velvet Cloak, and a Bay Garland’; Birth of Hercules (1597 <), prol. 5, ‘Thepilogue is in fashion; prologues no more’; and much later. Coronation, prol. 4,
he That with a little Beard, a long black Cloak, With a starch’d face, and supple leg hath spoke Before the plays the twelvemonth.
The prologue appears to be a composite figure, partly representing the poet, and deriving also in part from the presenter of dumb-shows, in part from the Chorus of neo-classic tragedy, and in part from the ‘exposytour in doctorys wede’, developed by miracle-plays and moralities out of the Augustine of the Prophetae; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 52, 72, 153, 417, 423, 426, 429, 448; F. A. Foster in E. S. xliv. 13; F. Lüders, Prolog und Epilog bei Shakespeare (Sh.-Jahrbuch, v. 274); Creizenach, 275. The short dramatic inductions, often introducing actors in propria persona, favoured by Jonson, Marston, and others about the beginning of the seventeenth century, attempt to give new life to a waning convention.