This is hard to understand; but there is no reason to suspect any corruption of the text. The allusion seems to be to the loud shrill tones of the children in acting. "Like to some boy, that acts a tragedy, Speaks burly words and roars out passion." Marston, Ant. and Mel. II. iv. 5. * * * * * "I know a hawk from a handsaw." The proper word is _hernshaw_; but the phrase may, as was not unusual, have undergone a change. * * * * * "The first row of the _Pons Chanson_ will show you more." What '_Pons Chanson_' is, no one has divined. Editors therefore read 'pious chanson,' meaning the ballad of Jephtha and his daughter. * * * * * "May be the devil and the devil has power." For the first 'the devil,' 4to 1604 reads _a deale_; so the reading was probably 'a devil,' which is best. ACT III. SC. 1. "Niggard of question; but of our demands Most free in his reply." Warburton transposes 'niggard' and 'most free'; and certainly, unless the poet forgot himself, he was by no means 'niggard of question'; and 'niggard' would also accord better than 'free' with 'of demands.' It might be better to read _to_ for 'of,' as these words were often confounded. * * * * * "Good gentlemen, give him a further edge." Here 'edge' seems used in a peculiar sense, as the substantive of _egg_, to urge, incite. * * * * * "Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself [lawful espials]." As 'lawful espials' is only in the folio, injures the measure, and is not necessary, I would omit it. * * * * * "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles." Though we meet in Shakespeare with incongruities as great as this, I incline to read for 'sea' _siege_, my own conjecture, as well as Pope's. We have "All sores lay siege" (Tim. iv. 3), "Sickness did lay siege" (M. N. D. i. 1), and several other expressions; and this is almost a solitary instance of the figurative use of 'sea' by our poet. _Assay_, or _assays_, for 'a sea,' has also been proposed, "Galling the gleaned land with hot _assays_" (Hen. V. i. 2); and it may have been the poet's word. If so, I should incline to read _the assay_. * * * * * "With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear." This is the reading of the folio, which I retain. 'These,' which gives much force to the expression, refers either to the evils he had enumerated, or is, as is so frequently the case, used in a general indefinite sense. * * * * * "_In_ the undiscover'd country from whose bourne No traveller returns." If any one refuses his assent to this very slight addition to the text, and which for the first time gives it sense, I must leave him to his own devices. Introd. p. 57.