Prince has resolved to present it as a piece of pompous folly intended to excite no loftier emotion than laughter and surprise. Here comes the Royal Tragedian with his troop. [Enter Hamlet and Players.
Ham. Good morrow, sir. This is our company of players. They have come to town to do honour and add completeness to our revels.
Cl. Good sirs, we welcome you to Elsinore.
Prepare you now—we are agog to taste
The intellectual treat in store for us.
Ham. We are ready, sir. But before we begin, I would speak a word to you who are to play this piece. I have chosen this play in the face of sturdy opposition from my well-esteemed friends, who were for playing a piece with less bombastick fury and more frolick. But I have thought this a fit play to be presented by reason of that very pedantical bombast and windy obtrusive rhetoric that they do rightly despise. For I hold that there is no such antick fellow as your bombastical hero who doth so earnestly spout forth his folly as to make his hearers believe that he is unconscious of all incongruity; whereas, he who doth so mark, label, and underscore his antick speeches as to show that he is alive to their absurdity, seemeth to utter them under protest, and to take part with his audience against himself. For which reason, I pray you, let there be no huge red noses, nor extravagant monstrous wigs, nor coarse men garbed as women in this comi-tragedy; for such things are as much as to say, "I am a comick fellow—I pray you laugh at me, and hold what I say to be cleverly ridiculous." Such labelling of humour is
