To be, or not to be

"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music.

In the speech, Hamlet contemplates death and suicide, weighing the pain and unfairness of life against the alternative, which might be worse. It is not clear that Hamlet is thinking of his own situation since the speech is entirely in an abstract, somewhat academic register that accords with Hamlet's status as a (recent) student at Wittenberg University. Furthermore, Hamlet is not alone as he speaks because Ophelia is on stage waiting for him to see her, and Claudius and Polonius have concealed themselves to hear him. Even so, Hamlet seems to consider himself alone and there is no definite indication that the others hear him before he addresses Ophelia, so the speech is almost universally regarded as a sincere soliloquy.

Text

This version preserves most of the

The First Quarto is a short early text of Hamlet. Though it was published in 1603, it was lost or not known until a copy was discovered in 1823. It contains a number of unique characteristics and oddities. When it was discovered, it was thought to be an earlier version than the Second Quarto, but is now considered by scholars to be derivative, or pirated and imperfectly remembered.^[2] In the version below, the spelling is updated, along with minor alterations of scansion, capitalization and punctuation.^[3][4]

To be, or not to be, Ay there's the point,
To Die, to sleep, is that all? Aye all:
No, to sleep, to dream, aye marry there it goes,
For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting Judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Who'd bear the scorns and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of the poor?
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,
The taste of hunger, or a tyrants reign,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full Quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this endure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Aye that, O this conscience makes cowards of us all,
Lady in thy orizons, be all my sins remembered.

Second Quarto (1604)

The text of the Second Quarto (Q2) is considered the earliest version of the play. In Q2 the whole nunnery scene including "To be" takes place later in the play than in Q1 where it occurs directly after Claudius and Polonius have planned it.^[5] The inclusion of "Soft you now", suggests that Hamlet has not (or is feigning having not) seen Ophelia thus far during his speech.^[6]

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 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 heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir too; tis a consumation
Devoutly to be wish'd to die to sleep,
To sleep, perhance to dream, ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we haue shuffled off this mortal coil
Muſt giue vs pauſe, there's the reſpect
That makes calamitie of ſo long life:
For who would beare the whips and ſcorns of time,
Th'oppreſſors wrong, the proude mans contumly,
The pangs of deſpiz'd loue, the lawes delay,
The inſolence of office, and the ſpurnes
That patient merrit of the'vnworthy takes,
When he himſelfe might his quietas make
With a bare bodkin; who would fardels beare,
To grunt and ſweat vnder a wearie life,
But that the dread of ſomething after death,
The vndiſcouer'd country, from whose borne
No trauiler returnes, puzzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare thoſe ills we haue,
Then flie to others we know not of.
Thus conſcience dooes make cowards,
And thus the natiue hiew of reſolution
Is ſickled ore with the pale caſt of thought,
And enterpriſes of great pitch and moment,
With this regard theyr currents turne awry,
And loose the name of action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia, Nimph in thy orizons
Be all my ſinnes remembred.

First Folio (1623)

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, published by

A plot point of the 1942 film comedy To Be or Not to Be involves the first line of the monologue. In the 1957 comedy film A King in New York, Charlie Chaplin recites the monologue in the shoes of the ambiguous King Shahdov.^{[citation needed]}

Hamlet's line is the basis of the title of Kurt Vonnegut's 1962 short story "2 B R 0 2 B" (the zero is pronounced "nought"). The narrative takes place in a dystopian future in which the United States government, through scientific advancement, has achieved a "cure" for both aging and overpopulation. The alphabetical/numerical reformulation of Shakespeare's lines serves in the story as the phone number for the Federal Bureau of Termination's assisted suicide request line.^{[9][citation needed]}

In 1963 at a debate in Oxford,

Last Action Hero (1993) has Jack Slater parody the phrase before blowing up a building behind him just by smoking a cigar. His version has him say "To be, or not to be? Not to be."^[11]

Star Trek's sixth film, The Undiscovered Country (1991) was named for the line from this speech, albeit the Klingon interpretation in which the title refers to the future and not death. References are made to Shakespeare during the film including Klingon translations of his works and the use of the phrase "taH pagh, taHbe' ", roughly meaning "whether to continue, or not to continue [existence]."^{[citation needed]}

What Dreams May Come, the 1978 novel by Richard Matheson and its 1998 film adaptation derive their name from a line from this speech.^{[citation needed]}

The 1997 film adaptation of George of the Jungle also parodies this line; when George sees a paraglider dangling off the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and notices a rope on the bridge's ledge, he quotes to the audience "To swing, or not to swing"? After deciding "swing", George grabs the rope and swings, saving the paraglider.^{[citation needed]}

The New Zealand television series Outrageous Fortune takes its title from the words of the third line of the speech.^{[citation needed]}

A shorter

]

The virtuoso soliloquy in Carl Michael Bellman's Fredman's Epistles, "Ack du min moder", was described by the poet and literary historian Oscar Levertin as "the to-be-or-not-to-be of Swedish literature".^[12][13]

The Japanese band P-Model's song 2D or Not 2D, off their self-titled album, directly references the line.^{[citation needed]}

Further reading

• Bruster, Douglas (2007). To be or not to be. London: Continuum.
  OCLC 729252852
  .
• Dillane, Richard (2021). "Making Sense of 'To be or not to be'", in Shakespeare and Montaigne edited by Lars Engle, Patrick Gray, William M. Hamlin. Edinburgh University Press.
  ISBN 978-1474458238

References

1. ^ Perseus Project. "Perseus:image:1998.04.0773 Image:1998.04.0773". Tufts University. Accessed 24 August 2013.
2. ISBN 978-1903436677
   P. 18 - 20.
3. ^ Shakespeare, William. The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke. As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London : as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where [The "First Quarto"], pp. 35 ff. Nicholas Ling & J. Trundell (London), 1603. Reprinted as The First Edition of the Tragedy of Hamlet: London, 1603. The Shakespeare Press, 1825.
4. ^ Shakespeare, William. [The "First Quarto"]. Hosted at The Shakespeare Quartos Archive Archived 2013-12-10 at the Wayback Machine as Hamlet, 1603. Copy 1. Huntington Library, image 17. Accessed 13 December 2013.
5. ^ Tronch Pérez, Jesús. "Dramaturgy of the Acting Version of the First Quarto of Hamlet". SEDERI VII (1996), p. 219.
6. ^ Shakespeare, William. The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie [The "Second Quarto"]. Nicholas Ling, 1604. Hosted at The Shakespeare Quartos Archive Archived 2013-12-10 at the Wayback Machine as Hamlet, 1604. Copy 1. Folger Library, images 27 & 28. Accessed 13 December 2013.
7. ^ Shakespeare, William. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published according to the True Originall Copies [The "First Folio"], p. 265. Isaac Jaggard & Ed Blount (London), 1623. Hosted at the Internet Shakespeare Editions as First Folio, p. 773 Archived 2013-12-16 at the Wayback Machine. Brandeis University. Accessed 13 Dec 2013.
8. S2CID 145808185 – via Taylor & Francis
   .
9. ^ Vonnegut, Kurt. "2 B R 0 2 B". gutenberg.org. The Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
10. ^ Colman, Dan (30 August 2009). "Watch Malcolm X Debate at Oxford, Quoting Lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1964)". Open Culture. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
11. ^ Last Action Hero – Hamlet Parody Scene (1/10) | Movieclips, retrieved 2024-01-14
12. ISBN 978-3932759000
    p. 61
13. ^ The original source is mentioned in Levertin, Oscar I. (1899). Introductory Essay to Fredmans Epistles (in Swedish).

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Hamlet (Shakespeare)

• Hamlet's To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy translated into modern English
• The Fishko Files: The Many Faces of Hamlet from WNYC's Sara Fishko, a radio piece and accompanying blog post about the many interpretations of the soliloquy.