OTHELLO
PROMPTER.
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter.
I, 2, 84.
In a special theatrical sense, the prompter denotes a person stationed out of sight of the audience to prompt or assist any actor who is at a loss in remembering his part. In early days of the drama, the usual word for this official was book-holder, and is so quoted in Higgins’Junius Nomenclator, 1588: “He that telleth the players their part when they are out and have forgotten. The prompter or book-holder.”
Ben Jonson uses the word book-holder in several of his plays, likewise many dramatists of this period. The word is now obsolete.
Other references:
PROLOGUE.
Is he often thus?’Tis ever more the prologue to his sleep.
Is he often thus?’Tis ever more the prologue to his sleep.
Is he often thus?’Tis ever more the prologue to his sleep.
Is he often thus?
’Tis ever more the prologue to his sleep.
II, 3, 134.
An index and obscure prologue.
An index and obscure prologue.
An index and obscure prologue.
An index and obscure prologue.
II, 1, 264.
CUE.
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter.
I, 2, 84.