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 groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered 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 away,
And lose the name of action. -
[OPHELIA returns.]
- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia: - Nymph, in thy orisons[24]
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph. (R.C.) Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. (L.C.) I humbly thank you; well.
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longèd long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
Ham. No, not I;
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 groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered 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 away,
And lose the name of action. -
[OPHELIA returns.]
- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia: - Nymph, in thy orisons[24]
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph. (R.C.) Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. (L.C.) I humbly thank you; well.
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longèd long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
Ham. No, not I;
