Hamlet Act III, Scene i

Hamlet      Act III, Scene i       Hamlet

(This text is featured in our interview with Gareth Saxe and Chukwudi Iwjui)

62. To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
63. Whether tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
64. The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
65. Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
66. And by Opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
67. No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
68. The Heartake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
69. That Flesh is heyre too? ‘Tis a consummation
70. Devoutly to be wish’d. To dye to sleepe,
71. To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there’s the rub,
72. For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
73. When we have shuffel’d off this mortall coile,
74. Must give us pawse. There’s the respect
75. That makes Calamity of so long life;
76. For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
77. The Opressors, wrong, the poore mans Contumely
78. The pangs of dispriz’d Love, the Lawes delay,
79. The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
80. That patient merit of the unworthy takes
81. When he himselfe might his Quietus make
82. With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare
83. To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
84. But that the dread of something after death,
85. The undiscovered Countrey, from whose Borne
86. No Traveller returns, Puzels the will,
87. And makes us rather beare those iles we have,
88. Then flye to others that we know not of.
89. Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
90. And thus the Native hew of Resolution
91. Is sicklied o’re, with the pale cast of Thought,
92. And enterprizes of great pith and moment
93. With this regard their Currants turne away
94. And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,
95. The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
96. Be all my sinnes remembred.

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