Listen to the powerful language of Hamlet's “To be, or not to be” monologue
Listen to the powerful language of Hamlet's “To be, or not to be” monologue
Listen to an actor performing the “To be, or not to be” monologue from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
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Transcript
MAYNARD MACK: They loved words. They loved figures of speech, puns, vivid metaphor. Especially, they loved poetry. Language with a powerful rhythm to it, the language of strong feeling. And since the theater is the home of strong feeling, they expected to hear poetry in the theater. And they did. They heard some of the most moving and complicated poetry ever written. And they came back for more.
I want you to listen to a sample of it from "Hamlet." In the lines we are about to hear, the young hero is thinking out loud about death. On the one hand, he longs for it, thinking of it as a sleep and, therefore, a release from troubles. But, on the other hand, he fears it, knowing that it may not be a sleep but rather another life with terrors all its own. He comes to the conclusion it is this fear that death may not be a sleep after all that makes men go on living, even under the most painful conditions.
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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. 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,
The 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 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 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 pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
I want you to listen to a sample of it from "Hamlet." In the lines we are about to hear, the young hero is thinking out loud about death. On the one hand, he longs for it, thinking of it as a sleep and, therefore, a release from troubles. But, on the other hand, he fears it, knowing that it may not be a sleep but rather another life with terrors all its own. He comes to the conclusion it is this fear that death may not be a sleep after all that makes men go on living, even under the most painful conditions.
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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. 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,
The 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 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 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 pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.