Ham. To be, or not to be: that is the question: 56
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 61
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; 64
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 68
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, 72
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, 76
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will, 80
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;
59 take... troubles; cf. n.
65 rub: obstacle
67 shuffled off: sloughed off
mortal coil: turmoil of mortal life
68 give us pause: cause us to hesitate
respect: consideration
72 dispriz’d: held in contempt
73 office: people holding official position
spurns: insults
75 quietus: release from life
76 bare: unsheathed, or, small
bodkin: dagger
fardels: burdens
79 bourn: boundary
83 conscience: sense of right and wrong (?), or, thought of consequences
