How many shakespearean plays end with an epilogue?

Answer 1

The marriages are often announced, but the marriage ceremony is rarely depicted, as it would be blasphemous to depict a sacrament onstage.

1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona ends with the betrothals of Valentine to Silvia and Proteus to Julia.
2. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Anne and Fenton come in at the very end to announce that they have eloped.
3. In Measure for Measure, in the last scene, Angelo is quickly married to Mariana, weddings are announced for Claudio and Juliet and for Lucio and a Prostitute he impregnated, and the Duke proposes marriage to Isabella (her answer is not given).
4. Much Ado of course ends just before the delayed marriage of Claudio and Hero, and the newly announced marriage of Beatrice and Benedick.
5. The whole last act of A Midsummer Night's Dream is the entertainment following three weddings: Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena.
6. As You Like It ends with an actual depiction of the non-Christian wedding of four couples: Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Phoebe and Silvius and Audrey and Touchstone.
7. Lucentio marries Bianca and Hortensio the widow in the last scene of The Taming of the Shrew.
8. Olivia and Sebastian marry in the second last scene of Twelfth Night, but it is not until the last that the past marriage of Sir Toby and Maria and the future one of Orsino and Viola are revealed.
9. The Winter's Tale ends with a betrothal, rather surprisingly, between Paulina and Camillo.
10. Almost the last line of Henry V is "Prepare we for our marriage".
11. Henry VI Part I ends with the announcement of the engagement to marry of King Henry and Margaret of Anjou.
12. The Two Noble Kinsmen ends with both a funeral and a wedding: they are to prepare for the funeral of Arcite, followed by the wedding of Palamon and Emilia.
13. At the very end of Pericles, Marina becomes engaged to Lysimachus and Pericles promises to shave off his beard for the wedding.
14. In The Tempest the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda is announced in the last scene.

That's about fourteen plays. Some of the comedies (All's Well, Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida), eight of the histories and all of the tragedies do not end in weddings.

Answer 2

If we define an epilogue as a speech, at the close of the play, directed to the audience and inviting their applause, the following plays have an epilogue:

Pericles (spoken by Gower): "In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard . . . so on your patience evermore attending, New joy on you! Here our play has ending."

Henry VIII: "Tis ten to one this play can never please all that are here . . ."

Henry V (spoken by the Chorus): "Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen . . . that they lost France and made his England bleed, which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake, in your fair minds let this acceptance take."

Henry IV Part II (spoken by a Dancer): " . . . One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France . . ." This remarkable prose Epilogue is an early example of "Coming Attractions", advertising the sequel in the preceding play.

The Tempest (spoken by Prospero): "Now my charms are all o'erthrown . . . as you from crimes would pardon'd be, let your indulgence set me free." This, and not the more familiar "Our revels now have ended . . ." is the true epilogue of this play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (spoken by Puck): "If we shadows have offended . . ."

As You Like It (spoken by Rosalind): "It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. . . ." One of Shakespeare's finest epilogues, in prose.

All's Well that Ends Well (spoken by the King): "The king's a beggar now the play is done . . ."

These eight examples are clearly epilogues. But it is not as clear as that in every case. First of all, it was not uncommon to have a dance or short comedy routine (called a jig) at the end of a play. In Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom asks the Duke, at the end of Pyramus and Thisbe, "Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?". Such dances or jigs were light entertainment (witness Hamlet's sneering "he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry") and did not usually require a script.

But some of Shakespeare's plays end in specific songs, as Twelfth Night does, which suggests that Shakespeare wanted this song to be sung in the jig. The end of Troilus and Cressida is even more jig-like. Pandarus the father of whoremasters is left alone on the stage and delivers a speech addressed to "Good traders in the flesh", the men and women in the prostitution industry which flourished in the liberty of the Clink where the Globe Theatre was situated, concluding with a song about having syphilis. Is this an epilogue? In some sense, yes. The same can be said for Don Armado's Spring and Winter songs in Love's Labour's Lost and his final

line of dismissal, presumably to the audience: "You, that way. We, this way."

Other plays end with valedictory lines of this kind, such as the Prince's line at the end of Romeo and Juliet "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo." Or the Bastard's patriotic speech at the end of King John, ostensibly to the young prince Henry (soon to be Henry III), but perhaps also to the audience, ending with "Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true." Or Edgar's speech at the end of King Lear, ending with "We that are young, shall never see so much, or live so long." But we cannot really call these epilogues, since they are at least ostensibly spoken to someone onstage, and the fourth wall is not broken.

You will note that there are no epilogues for any of the tragedies.

Answer 3

Henry V. A Midsummer Night's Dream. As You Like It. There could be more, but they don't spring to mind.