Chapter 233

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.

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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 bourne 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 sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

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Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.