elcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad [Sidenote: You are]
to see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my
[Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]]
olde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee
last: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke?
What, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady [Sidenote: by lady]
your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw [Sidenote: nerer to]
you last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray
God your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be
not crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all
welcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14]
[Sidenote: like friendly Fankner]
flie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech

[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in the _Quarto_.]

[Footnote 2: Does this phrase mean _all in one scene_?]

[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only--one not _limited_, or _divided_
into speeches.]

[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the
Liberty, these are the onely men':--_either for written plays_, that is,
_or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches_.

_1st Q_. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']

[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]

[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still
in existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had
sacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about
her?]

[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']

[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of the _pious_ in the _Quarto_,
is made clearer from the _1st Quarto_: 'the first verse of the godly
Ballet wil tel you all.']

[Footnote 9: _abridgment_--that which _abridges_, or cuts short. His
'Abridgements' were the Players.]

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'Vallanced'--_with a beard_, that is. Both
readings may be correct.]

[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]

[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]

[Footnote 13: --because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece
of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was
no longer current. _1st Q_. 'in the ring:'--was a pun intended?]

[Footnote 14: --like French sportsmen of the present day too.]

[Page 102]

straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality:
come, a passionate speech.

_1. Play._ What spe