A monologue from the play by
William Shakespeare
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that
is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind
to suffer
The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of
troubles
And by opposing end them.
To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we
end
The heartache, and the thousand
natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a
consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to
sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay,
there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what
dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this
mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the
respect
That makes calamity of so long
life.
For who would bear the whips and
scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud
man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the
law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the
spurns
That patient merit of th'
unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus
make
With a bare bodkin? Who would
fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary
life,
But that the dread of something
after death,
The undiscovered country, from
whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the
will,
And makes us rather bear those
ills we have
Than fly to others that we know
not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards
of us all,
And thus the native hue of
resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale
cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and
moment
With this regard their currents
turn awry
And lose the name of action. --
Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in
thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.