III.ii.202 (252,7)

  Most necessary ’tis, that we forget
  To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt]

The performance of a resolution, in which only the resolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure.

III.ii.206 (252,8)

  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.