The obvious one

Cory Howell
Bites of Bard
Published in
2 min readJun 1, 2017

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It doesn’t get much more famous than this soliloquy from Act III, Scene 1 of Hamlet:

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 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,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

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Cory Howell
Bites of Bard

Full-time dad & part-time church musician in the United Methodist Church; occasional blogger; fan of Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, language, the Bible, and more