They are uniformly constructed with an introduction and a dialogue ; the introduction is composed of from five to ten strophes of four heptasyllabic verses ; the dialogue between two persons or two groups of persons contains forty four strophes ( twenty-two for each interlocutor ) similar to those in the prologue and forming an alphabetic acrostic.

Augustine quotes also an ancient text from the Sibylline oracles whose verses are an acrostic of the generating sentence.

An acrostic ( from French acrostiche < post-classical Latin acrostichis < Hellenistic, from ancient ' highest, topmost ' + στίχος ' verse ') is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.

Book VIII offers peculiar difficulties ; the first 216 verses are most likely the work of a second century Jew, while the latter part ( verses 217-500 ) beginning with an acrostic on the symbolical Christian word Icthus is undoubtedly Christian, and dates most probably from the third century.

Poem has a hidden acrostic Solus deus potes nos liberare de tribulatione inimicorum Turcorum sua potentia infinita, " Only God can save us from the misery of our enemies Turks ", discovered by Luko Paljetak.

* The name " Fauvel " is an acrostic made from the initials of a French variant of six of the Seven Deadly Sins: Flaterie ( pride ), Avarice ( greed ), Vilanie ( wrath ), Variété ( inconstancy / sloth ), Envie ( envy ), and Lacheté ( cowardice / lust ).

The Carmen Apologeticum, undoubtedly by Commodianus, although the name of the author ( as well as the title ) is absent from the MS., is free from the acrostic restriction.

The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.

The initial letters of the quatrains, indicated by large initials in some manuscripts, form an acrostic with the names Gotefrid-Tristan-Isolde, which runs throughout the poem.

Walter Skeat found that the initial letters of the sections formed an acrostic saying, " MARGARET OF VIRTU HAVE MERCI ON TSKNVI.

The very name of Sybil hints at the trick of the final paragraph, as the word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.

The Instructiones consist of 80 poems, each of which is an acrostic ( with the exception of poem 60, where the initial letters are in alphabetical order ).

* " A boat beneath a sunny sky " is the first line of a titleless acrostic poem at the end of the book — the beginning letters of each line, when put together, spell Alice Pleasance Liddell.

The second acrostic is found by taking the first letters of the first ( in bold ) and reading them backwards to get " J. S. Bach " ( just as the first acrostic claims ).

" However, if one takes the first letters of each word, the resulting acrostic reads " BOYCOTT PETCO ".

Relatively simple acrostics may merely spell out the letters of the alphabet in order ; such an acrostic may be called an ' alphabetical acrostic ' or Abecedarius.

One passage has an acrostic, spelling out a Christian code-phrase with the first letters of successive lines.

The first letters of each line of the resulting acrostic spelled out the message: " Nicholas Murray Butler is a horses ass.

The first letters of the titles taken backwards form a Latin acrostic of " Ero Cras " which translates to " Tomorrow, I will be there ", mirroring the theme of the antiphons.

Sometimes the acrostic is linear, simple when each verse begins successively with one of the twenty-two letters of the Syriac alphabet, multiple, when two, three, or more verses begin with the same letter without, forming strophes ; sometimes it is strophic, when each strophe is marked by a letter of the alphabet.

The first letters of each of the stanzas form an acrostic, which frequently includes the name of the poet.

The " lecture " begins with " Mr. Burgess " reading Sonnet 147, to which he will eventually reference as proof of Shakespeare contracting syphilis, proposing that his Dark Lady's name is spelled in acrostic in the poem, the letters F T M H being a latinization of the Arabic name " Fatjmah ", meaning " destiny ".

A double acrostic, for example, may have words at the beginning and end of its lines, as this example, on the name of Stroud, by Paul Hansford -

When the Sibyl had recited her acrostic lines on the Signs of Judgment, all the prophets sang in unison a hymn of praise to the long-sought Saviour.

Some peaceful province in acrostic land.

However, the strict acrostic style of four of the five poems is not found at all in the Book of Jeremiah itself and Jeremiah's name is not found anywhere in the book itself ( nor any other name, for that matter ), so authorship of Lamentations is disputed.

The fifth is not acrostic, but also has twenty-two verses.

), who was credited, along with the monk Francesco Colonna, with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by an acrostic in the text.

They are sometimes also divided into such categories as Sifrei Emet ( ספרי אמת, literally " Books of Truth ") of Psalms, Proverbs and Job ( the Hebrew names of these three books form the Hebrew word for " truth " as an acrostic, and all three books have unique cantillation marks ), the " wisdom books " of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, the " poetry books " of Psalms, Lamentations and Song of Songs, and the " historical books " of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.

In a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise, the author hints that there is a contrapunctal acrostic in the chapter that refers both to the author ( Hofstadter ) and Bach.

He is also known as Josquin Desprez and Latinized as Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratensis, although he himself expressed his preferred spelling of his name, Josquin des Prez, in an acrostic in his motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix.

In the 1530s, he wrote poetry in the Devonshire MS declaring his love for a woman ; employing the basic acrostic formula, the first letter of each line spells out SHELTUN.

::(" I am the Empire at the end of the decadence, who watches the large, white barbarians passing, while composing lazy acrostic poems in a gilded style in which the languor of the sun dances.

Among those to follow Alcuin across the Channel to the Frankish court was Joseph Scottus, an Irishman who left some original biblical commentary and acrostic experiments.

Vanilla Fudge, the debut album by Vanilla Fudge, also contains a cover of " Strawberry Fields Forever " titled " ELDS "; the album in fact spelt out an acrostic of the song as an homage, with preceding tracks titled " STRA ", " WBER " and " RYFI.

Harlan comes upon an ad for stock tips — All the Talk Of the Market, concealing the acrostic A-T-O-M, accompanying a drawing of a mushroom cloud.

In this work various acrostic verses contain the name " Eliezer b. Nathan.

Hence PETA used advertising in the form of an acrostic.

During his reign a hymn to Saint James was composed with an acrostic mentioning the king's name.

The book is anonymous, but an acrostic formed by the first, elaborately decorated letter in each chapter in the original Italian reads POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCVS COLVMNA PERAMAVIT, " Brother Francesco Colonna has dearly loved Polia.

The introduction of a Riemannian metric or a symplectic form gives rise to a natural isomorphism between the tangent space and the cotangent space at a point, associating to any tangent covector a canonical tangent vector.

Additionally, the author gives no indication that the report he " heard " was his introduction to the church in Ephesus.

Ibn Ezra gives a list of the oldest Hebrew grammarians in the introduction to his Moznayim ( 1140 ).

In his introduction to Revelation he claimed that others had independently arrived at similar conclusions as himself, though he gives pride of place to Grotius.

The Shadowrun role-playing game has spawned Shadowrun: The Trading Card Game, four video games, an action figure game ( Shadowrun Duels ), two magazines, an art book and more than 50 novels, starting with the Secrets of Power series which introduces some of the original characters of Shadowrun and gives a good introduction to this fictional universe.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press The editors ' long introduction gives a clear and very useful overview of theories of vagueness, and they collect many classic papers on the subject.

* On-line textbook: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, by David MacKay, gives an accessible introduction to Shannon theory and data compression, including the Huffman coding and arithmetic coding.

" In his second paper he gives an introduction to the theory of numbers.

This article gives an introduction to notable natural disasters, refer to the list of natural disasters for a comprehensive listing.

gives, which is the first part of, or " introduction to ", the word " do-gooder ", and means " canine ".

Livy, writing 200 years after the event, gives a highly theatrical account of the Bacchanalia's introduction by a foreign soothsayer, a " Greek of mean condition ... a low operator of sacrifices ".

The first movement, called Introduzione by Bartók, is a slow introduction of Night music type that gives way to an allegro with numerous fugato passages.

She gives a brief explanation and history of these terms in her introduction, including a few not listed here.

* William Jaco JSJ Decomposition of 3-manifolds This lecture gives a brief introduction to Seifert fibered 3-manifolds and provides the existence and uniqueness theorem of Jaco, Shalen, and Johannson for the JSJ decomposition of a 3-manifold.

This version contains a letter that Solinus wrote as an introduction to the work which gives the work the title Polyhistor (' multi-descriptive ').

LBW gives students an introduction to undergraduate business education at Wharton.

* In the Heart of Darkness ( 1998 ), the second book of the alternate history Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake, gives a significantly different outcome of the Nika riots because of the influence of Malwa as the financiers of the revolt and the introduction of a grenadier company led by Belisarius ' wife, Antonina.

The introduction of SPECTRE and its use over a number of books gives a measure of continuity to the remaining stories in the series, according to academic Jeremy Black.

: Your letter of yesterday is received & I hasten to answer as fully as I can -- Joseph Smith Jr first come to my notice in the year 1824 in the summer of that year I contracted with his father to build a fence on my property in the corse of that work I approach Joseph & ask how it is in a half day you put up what requires your father & 2 brothers a full day working together he says I have not been with out assistance but can not say more only you better find out the next day I take the older Smith by the arm & he says Joseph can see any thing he wishes by looking at a stone Joseph often sees Spirits here with great kettles of coin money it was Spirits who brought up rock because Joseph made no attempt on their money I latter dream I converse with spirits which let me count their money when I awake I have in my hand a dollar coin which I take for a sign Joseph describes what I seen in every particular says he the spirits are grieved so I through back the dollar in the fall of the year 1827 I hear Joseph found a gold bible I take Joseph aside & he says it is true I found it 4 years ago with my stone but only just got it because of the enchantment the old spirit come to me 3 times in the same dream & says dig up the gold but when I take it up the next morning the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole & struck me 3 times & held the treasure & would not let me have it because I lay it down to cover over the hole when the spirit says do not lay it down Joseph says when can I have it the spirit says one year from to day if you obay me look to the stone after a few days he looks the spirit says bring your brother Alvin Joseph says he is dead shall I bring what remains but the spirit is gone Joseph goes to get the gold bible but the spirit says you did not bring your brother you can not have it look to the stone Joseph looks but can not see who to bring the spirit says I tricked you again look to the stone Joseph looks & sees his wife on the 22d day of Sept 1827 they get the gold bible -- I give Joseph $ 50 to move him down to Pa Joseph says when you visit me I will give you a sign he gives me some hiroglyphics I take then to Utica Albany & New York in the last place Dr Mitchel gives me an introduction to Professor Anthon says he they are short hand Egyption the same what was used in ancient times bring me the old book & I will translate says I it is made of precious gold & is sealed from view says he I can not read a sealed book -- Joseph found some giant silver specticles with the plates he puts them in an old hat & in the darkness reads the words & in this way it is all translated & written down -- about the middle of June 1829 Joseph takes me together with Oliver Cowdery & David Whitmer to have a view of the plates our names are appended to the book of Mormon which I had printed with my own money -- space and time both prevent me from writing more at present if there is any thing further you wish to inquire I shall attend to it

The introduction to her 1813 collected works gives an account of how Cowley was struck by a sudden desire to write while attending a play with her husband.

Hardy and E. M. Wright, An introduction to the theory of numbers, 5th ed., Oxford ( 1979 ) ISBN 0-19-853171-0 ( Chapter 17 gives further examples.

As in many Elizabethan plays, there is a chorus that does not interact with the other characters but rather provides an introduction and conclusion to the play and gives an introduction to the events that have unfolded at the beginning of some acts.