Looking Forward

"What's past is prologue."

-Shakespeare, The Tempest, paraphrased by Joe Biden during the VP debate tonight in response to Sarah Palin's continual charge that the Obama campaign is dwelling on the political past rather than looking forward

The Tempest is full of theatrical metaphors, such as "what's past is prologue." The metaphor has been forgotten, and the phrase has devolved into distorted forms (like "past and prologue").

Prologues were common in Renaissance drama, though Shakespeare himself wrote few of them. The prologue usually set the scene and presented the givens of the play. "What's past is prologue," then, translates roughly as "What's already happened merely sets the scene for the really important stuff, which is the stuff our greatness will be made on." -enotes.com