To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to ſuffer
The Slings and Arrows of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to ſleepe
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thouſand Naturall ſhockes
That Flesh is there too? "Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wiſh'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; I, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we haue ſhufflel’d off this mortall coile,
Muſt giue us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of long life:
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
The Oppreſſors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
The pangs of diſpriz’d Loue, the Lawes delay,
The inſolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,
When he himſelfe might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would theſe Fardles beare
To grunt and ſweat vnder a weary life,
But that the dread of ſomething after death,
The vndiſcouered Countrey, from whoſe Borne
No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conſcience does make Cowards of vs all,
And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution
Is ſicklied o’re, with the pale caſt of Thought,
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Currants turne away,
And looſe the name of Action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
Be all my ſinnes remembred.