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.