Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1
Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1
Recited in the way it would be given in the modern world
* Click the image to listen to my recitation of the modern version.
TO LIVE, or not to live, that's the question.
Is it more noble to endure the blows of fickle Fortune
or to fight against overwhelming odds and overcome them?
To die is to sleep nothing more;
And if by sleep we could end the heartaches
and the thousand everyday anxieties that humans suffer
it would be an outcome to be cordially welcomed!
To die...
To sleep...
To sleep and perhaps to dream...
... ah there's the catch!
Those dreams that we might have during that sleep of death
after we cast off our Hurley Burley of mortal life must make us hesitate.
That's what makes us tolerate suffering so long.
Who would bear the torments of this world we live in;
The tyrants injustice;
The arrogant man's rudeness;
The pangs of unrequited love;
The slow process of law;
The insolence of persons inauthority;
And the insults that the humble suffer
when we could settle everything himself with a simple dagger!
Who would be a beast of burden grunting and sweating with fatigue
if it were not for the dread of something after death,
the unexplored country from whose territory no traveler returns...
must make us ambivalent...
and makes us choose to bear the troubles that we have
rather than fly to others that we know nothing about.
That's where our intelligence makes us all cowards
and by our determination though normally so healthy looking...
Takes on a sickly pallor through thinking too much about precise details.
The process causes ventures of the highest importance to go astray
and just to lose their impetus.
* Click the image to listen to my recitation of the modern version.
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“I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.”
Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1
by William Shakespeare
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 the 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 traveler 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 sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And, enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.