“What’s past is prologue”*

摘要

The title words, spoken by Shakespeare’s Antonio in The Tempest, have come to convey a double meaning. The sanguine interpretation is that everything that has taken place in the past is a preparation for the opportunities to come. In other words, what’s already happened merely sets the stage for the really important stuff that will lead to greatness. The alternate, more cynical view, would be that what took place in the past inevitably repeats itself because we don’t learn from our experiences and mistakes.