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.

      The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?

      Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things

      that luck throws your way, or to fight against

      all those troubles by simply putting an end

      to them once and for all? Dying, sleeping—

      that’s all dying is – a sleep that ends

      all the heartache and shocks

      that life on earth gives us—

      that’s an achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—

      to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch:

      in death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come,

      after we’ve put the noise and commotion of life behind us.

      That’s certainly something to worry about. That’s the consideration

      that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long.

      To be, or not to be, aye there’s the point,

      To Die, to sleepe, is that all? Aye all:

      No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,

      For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,

      And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,

      From whence no passenger euer retur’nd,

      The vndiscouered country, at whose sight

      The happy smile, and the accursed damn’d.

      But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,

      Whol’d beare the scornes and flattery of the world,

      Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?

      The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong’d,

      The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,

      And thousand more calamities besides,

      To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life…