To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of
And by opposing end them.
To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we
The heart-ache and the thousand natural
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a
Devoutly to be wish'd.
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
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus
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
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and
With this regard their currents turn
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet's Soliloquy:
Shakespeare's Hamlet is one of the most familiar works of Renaissance literature.
The drama of this play concerns problems as revealed through an individual family.
The problems of society at large are seen through the eyes, actions and thoughts of members of that family.
