Page 285 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

178 N O T E S 2.2.

Earl's execution. Nor have we any direct evidence that
the Admiral's men were inhibited; but they seem to have
ceased playing for a time in Feb. and March, 1601, and
were involved in legal troubles of some kind in the same
year (v. Chambers, Eliz. Stage, ii. 174-75). Cf. also
Chambers, Will. Shak. i. 65, 423.
339. No, indeed, are they not< It is surely absurd to
suppose that Sh.'s company would thus bluntly proclaim
themselves unpopular. Thatthey were financially affected
'too' is hinted at in 11. 364-65 (v. note).
(
340-65. How comes it...his load too Fi). Q2
omits, perhaps because, as De Groot suggests, when Q2
was printed in 1604 Anne of Denmark was Queen of
England and had taken the Children of the Chapel under
her protection (v. Chambers, Will. Shak. i. 414 and
MSH. pp. 96, 98). The 'little eyases' were, of course,
these Children, and the passage refers to the Poetomachia
or 'War of the Theatres' begun by Jonson's Cynthia's
Revels, acted by the Children late 1600, and his
Poetaster, belonging to the spring of 1601, to which
Dekker and Marston replied in Satiromastix acted by
Sh.'s company in the summer of the same year. Sh.
therefore can hardly have written the words before the
summer of 1601. Cf. Introd. pp. xxi-xxii. (For the
'War of the Theatres' v. Chambers, Eliz. Stage, i. 381;
iii. 363-64, 293, and R. A. Small, Stage-Barrel,
Breslau, 1899.)
343. that cry out.. .question i.e. whose shrill voices
are heard above all others in the controversy, v. G. 'top,'
'question' and 1. 443 below.
345. the common stages i.e. the public playhouses.
The Children of the Chapel played at the Blackfriars,
a 'private' playhouse.
345-47. that many.. .come thither 'Fashionable
gallants are afraid to visit the common theatres, so un-
fashionable have the writers for the children made them'
(Dowden).