EPILOGUE.
An address or short poem recital before the audience after the conclusion of a play. Rosalind, the heroine of this comedy, delivered the epilogue. Few dramatists in those days furnished either prologues or epilogues when writing their plays, but after the Restoration, when women played the female parts, the custom became universal and was generally spoken by one of the actresses. Nell Gwynne, when she acted, usually recited these lines. In many instances the epilogues are spoken by a person not connected with the play. There exists some doubt whether Shakespeare wrote the prologues and epilogues prefixed to the printed edition of his plays, the general custom permitting another hand adding these verses. Of course the magnificent prologues in “Henry V” are Shakespeare to the core.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
COMEDIANS. EXTEMPORALLY. REVELS. BOY MY GREATNESS.
The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels! Antony
shall be brought drunken forth and I shall see
some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
In the posture of a wanton.