We will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.
III, 1, 25.
The ballads of the day were generally written in this metre, alternate verses of eight and six syllables. The sonnets of the time were composed in fourteen lines. All Shakespearean sonnets are written in this number. Quince may have had this reckoning in his mind when he recommended eight and six—fourteen. George Gascoigne, the Elizabethan poet, composed the verses for a masque in fourteen syllable metre. In the play as performed before the Duke, the prologue does not appear.
EPILOGUE.
Please you to see the epilogue or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
V, i, 360.
A Bergomask dance was performed after the manner of a dance by Bergamo peasants. Bergamo was formerly a town in Venetia; now it is in the province of Lombardy.
But come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.
V, i, 369.
ERCLES VEIN. PART.