_Guild_. Oh there ha's beene much throwing about of Braines.

_Ham_. Do the Boyes carry it away?[17]

_Rosin_. I that they do my Lord, _Hercules_ and his load too.[18]

_Ham_. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is [Sidenote: not very strange,

my]

King of Denmarke, and those that would make mowes at him while my Father liued; giue twenty, [Sidenote: make mouths]

[Footnote 1: The whole of the following pa.s.sage, beginning with 'How comes it,' and ending with 'Hercules and his load too,' belongs to the _Folio_ alone--is not in the _Quarto_.

In the _1st Quarto_ we find the germ of the pa.s.sage--unrepresented in the _2nd_, developed in the _Folio_.

_Ham_. Players, what Players be they?

_Ross_. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty, Those that you tooke delight to see so often.

_Ham_. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?

_Gil_. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

_Ham_. How then?

_Gil_. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away, For the princ.i.p.all publike audience that Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19]

And to the humour[20] of children.

_Ham_. I doe not greatly wonder of it, For those that would make mops and moes At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]

[Footnote 2: _a nest of children_. The acting of the children of two or three of the chief choirs had become the rage.]

[Footnote 3: _Eyases_--unfledged hawks.]

[Footnote 4: Children _cry out_ rather than _speak_ on the stage.]

[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'--_unquestionably_; 'cry out and no mistake.' 'He does not top his part.' _The Rehearsal_, iii. 1.--'_He is not up to it_.' But perhaps here is intended _above reason_: 'they cry out excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,--_A Lover's Complaint_.]

[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, _beratle_--except the _are_ of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled _are_ the common stages.' If the _present_, then the children 'so abuse the grown players,'--in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new _arguments_, written for them--whence the reference to _goose-quills_.]

[Footnote 7: --of the play-going public.]

[Footnote 8: --for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]

[Footnote 9: _paid_--from the French _escot_, a shot or reckoning: _Dr.

Johnson_.]

[Footnote 10: --the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]

[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']

[Footnote 12: Either _will_ should follow here, or _like_ and _most_ must change places.]

[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]

[Footnote 14: --what they had had to come to themselves.]

[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to controversy': _to tarre them on like dogs_: see _King John_, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue, to a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein represented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the children and adult actors.']

[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']

[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that allusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre--Hercules bearing the world for Atlas.]

[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]

[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]

[Page 98]

forty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1]

[Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred]

in Little.[2] There is something in this more then [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is]

Naturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.

_Flourish for tke Players_.[3] [Sidenote: _A Florish_.]

_Guil_. There are the Players.

_Ham_. Gentlemen, you are welcom to _Elsonower_: your hands, come: The appurtenance of [Sidenote: come then, th']

Welcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me [Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent]

the Players (which I tell you must shew fairely outward) should more appeare like entertainment[6]

[Sidenote: outwards,]

then yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle Father, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.

_Guil_. In what my deere Lord?

_Ham_. I am but mad North, North-West: when the Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a Handsaw.[8]

_Enter Polonius_.

_Pol_. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.

_Ham_. Hearke you _Guildensterne_, and you too: at each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet out of his swathing clouts.

[Sidenote: swadling clouts.]

_Rosin_. Happily he's the second time come to [Sidenote: he is]

them: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.