The violence of either grief or joy,
Their own enactures with themselves destroy]
What grief or joy _enact_ or determine in their violence, is revealed in
their abatement. _Enactures_ is the word in the quarto; all the modern
editions have _enactors_.
III.ii.229 (252,9) An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope] May my whole
liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prison. _Anchor_
is for _anchoret_.
III.ii.250 (253,1) Baptista] _Baptista_ is, I think, in Italian, the
name always of a man.
III.ii.262 (254,4) So you must take your husbands] Read, _So you_ must
take _your husbands_ [in place of "mistake"]; that is, _for better, for
worse_.
III.ii.288 (255,5) with two provencial roses on my rayed shoes] When
shoe-strings were worn, they were covered, where they met in the middle,
by a ribband, gathered into the form of a rose. So in an old song,
Gil-de-Roy _was a bonny boy_,
_Had_ roses _tull his_ shoen.
_Rayed_ shoes, are shoes _braided_ in lines.
III.ii.304 (256,1) For if the king like not the comedy/Why, then,
belike] Hamlet was going on to draw the consequence when the courtiers
entered.
III.ii.314 (256,2) With drink, Sir?] Hamlet takes particular care that
his uncle's love of drink shall not be forgotten.
III.ii.346 (257,3) further trade] Further business; further dealing.
III.ii.348 (257,4) by these pickers] By these hands.
III.ii.373 (258,6) ventages] The holes of a flute.
III.ii.401 (259,9) they fool me to the top of my bent] They compel me to
play the fool, till I can endure to do it no longer.
III.iii.7 (261,4) Out of his lunes] [The old quartos read,
_Out of his_ brows.
This was from the ignorance of the first editors; as is this unnecessary
Alexandrine, which we owe to the players. The poet, I am persuaded,
wrote,
--_us doth hourly grow_
_out of his_ lunes.
i.e. his _madness, frenzy_. THEOBALD.]
_Lunacies_ is the reading of the folio.
I take _brows_ to be, properly read, _frows_, which, I think, is a
provincial word for _perverse humours_; which being, I suppose, not
understood, was changed to _lunacies_. But of this I an not confident.
[Steevens adopted Theobald's emendation]
III.iii.33 (262,7) of vantage] By some opportunity of secret
observation.
III.iii.56 (263,9) May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?] He that
does not amend what can be amended, _retains_ his _offence_. The king
kept the crown from the right heir.
III.iii.66 (263,1) Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?] What can
repentance _do for a man that cannot be penitent_, for a man who has
only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part,
resolution of amendment.
III.iii.77 (264,1) I, his sole son, do this same villain send] The folio
reads foule son, a reading apparently corrupted from the quarto. The
meaning is plain. _I, his_ only _son_, who am bound to punish his
murderer.
III.iii.88 (264,2) Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent] [T:
bent] This reading is followed by Sir T. HANMER and Dr. WARBURTON; but
_hent_ is probably the right vord. To _hent_ is used by Shakespeare for,
to _seize_, to _catch_, to _lay hold on_. _Hent_ is, therefore, _hold_,
or _seizure_. _Lay hold_ on him, sword, at a more horrid time.
III.iii.94 (265,3) his soul may be as damn'd and black/As hell, whereto
it goes] This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous
character, is not content vith taking blood for blood, but contrives
damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read
or to be uttered.
III.iv.4 (266,4) I'll silence me e'en here:/Pray you, be round vith him]
Sir T. HANMER, who is folloved by Dr. WARBURTON, reads,
--_I'll_ sconce _me here_.
_Retire_ to a place of _security_. They forget that the contrivance of
Polonius to overhear the conference, was no more told to the queen than
to Hamlet.--_I'll silence me even here_, is, _I'll use no more words_.