To Be or Not To Be (Act 3 Scene 1) Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the question: ​(To die, or not to die? That is the question)
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer​ (is it nobler to suffer)​ The slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune,​(through all the terrible things fate throw at you? )
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, ​(or to fight off your troubles,)
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;​(and in doing so, end them completely?
To die, to sleep)
No more; and by a sleep to say we end ​(because that is all dying is)
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks ​(by sleep I mean an end)
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation ​(to all the headache and thousand injuries
that we are vulnerable to)
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; ​(that's an end to be dreamed for)
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, (​after you left behind your mortal body)
Must give us pause: there’s the respect ​(are things that would make you anxious)
That makes calamity of so long life;​(thats the consideration that makes us suffer the
calamities of life for so long)
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, ​(for those who bear all the trails of
time)
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,​(the oppression of the powerful,
insults from the arrogant man)
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, ​(the pangs of unrequited love, the
slowness of justice,)
The insolence of office and the spurns ​(the disrespect of people in office,)
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make​(and the general abuse of good people by
bad)
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,​ (when you could just settle all your
debts)
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death, ​(using nothing more than an unsheathed
dagger?)
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller 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,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

In this soliloquy, Hamlet is portrayed as a confused man as he is unsure of himself with his

thoughts being wavered between two extremes due to his relatively strange personality. In
the soliloquy, he contemplates whether or not he should end his life or continue to live on

and consider seeking revenge for his father. From the lines “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? “ suggests that Hamlet is wondering about whether

he should live but to suffer the hardships that life has to offer him or to die in order to end the

suffering.