Narrative
In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus tells a story about a party of virgins (perhaps bridesmaids or torchbearers for a procession) given the honor of attending a wedding. Each of the ten virgins is carrying a lamp (or torch) as they await the coming of the bridegroom, which they expect at some time during the night. Five of the virgins are wise and have brought sufficient oil for their lamps. Five are foolish and have not.
The bridegroom is delayed until late into the night; when he arrives the foolish virgins ask the wise ones for oil, but they refuse, saying that there will certainly not (Greek ou mē) be enough for all of them if they do that. While the foolish virgins are away trying to get more oil, the bridegroom arrives. The wise virgins are there to welcome him and the foolish ones arrive too late and are excluded:
Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, "Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!" Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." But the wise answered, saying, "What if there isn't enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves." While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But he answered, "Most certainly I tell you, I don't know you." Watch therefore, for you don't know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
— Matthew 25:1-13, World English Bible
Read more about this topic: Parable Of The Ten Virgins
Famous quotes containing the word narrative:
“To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)