To be, or not to be

For other uses, see To Be or Not to Be.

"To be or not to be" is the opening phrase of a soliloquy in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It is one of the most well-known Shakespearean quotations, but there is disagreement on its meaning, as there is on the meaning of the whole speech.

Text

This is the First Folio text [1] with spelling updated but capitals and punctuation untouched as possible clues to original delivery. Four emendations (italic) are incorporated from the other authoritative original edition, the second Quarto.

“

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 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. 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, [poor] The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, [disprized] 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 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 pitch and moment, [pith] With this regard their Currents turn awry, [away] And lose the name of Action. Soft you now, The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons Be all my sins remembered.

”

Hamlet speaks this on his entry to Act 3 scene 1 (known as the 'nunnery scene' because of the Hamlet/Ophelia dialogue after the speech) which is when Polonius and Claudius put into effect their plan, hatched in Act 2 scene 2, to watch Hamlet with Ophelia to determine whether, as Polonius thinks, his 'madness' springs from "neglected love". They have planted her where it is his habit to walk and think: Claudius and Polonius have hidden themselves and Ophelia is pretending to read a book but until he sees her at the end of the speech Hamlet thinks himself alone.

Interpretation

The main points of disagreement about this speech are

1. whether it is about suicide or merely the condition of being dead
2. whether - if it is about suicide - Hamlet is suicidal or merely philosophising about it
3. what the apparent theme of endurance vs. action has to do with being and nonbeing
4. what the conclusion means and how it follows from the preceding parts of the speech.

Elaborating each in turn:

1. It is hard to interpret ‘making one’s own quietus’ as anything other than suicide but it is odd that having dismissed suicide earlier (in the 'Too too solid flesh' soliloquy) as an option closed to him on religious grounds Hamlet should return to the subject apparently without those qualms.

2. Since he last expressed suicidal thoughts the situation has worsened in that he is now convinced his father’s death was murder and he must take revenge on his uncle who is now his stepfather and king, and Ophelia has rejected his love. Grounds, one may think, to contemplate suicide again. On the other hand while the other soliloquies are intensely subjective and agonised, ‘To be’ is almost studiously abstract, not containing a single ‘I’ or ‘me’ nor much obvious passion.

3. 'Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer … Or to take arms’ seems obviously to ask whether it is better to be Stoically passive to life's troubles or heroically active against them. The trouble is how this relates to ‘to be or not to be’. Some regard it as a different question, dismissing the problem by claiming Hamlet's thoughts have already moved on, while others perceive a logical continuity; of these, some think the equivalence is between ‘to be’ and ‘to suffer’ and others that ‘to be’ is actually ‘to take arms’.

4. On its own, ‘Conscience makes us cowards’ seems straightforwardly to condemn moral consciousness for preventing action. One problem with this is the likelihood that a moral hero would condemn morality. The other is again logical: the word 'Thus' suggests Hamlet has deduced his conclusion but since morality has not figured in the speech it seems to many critics a nonsequitur. They suggest an alternative meaning of ‘Conscience’ such that the fault lies with our thinking about death, or with thinking per se.

These are fundamental uncertainties that make an objective summary of meaning - even vague meaning - impossible, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, the speech is regarded as Hamlet's most significant and as a jewel of world literature.

First Quarto

The first quarto's version of the speech

Comparison of the 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy in the first three editions of Hamlet

In the first edition of Hamlet in print, the First Quarto, the speech appears as follows (spelling corrected as before):

To be, or not to be, aye 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 damned.
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 wronged,
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 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.
Ay that, O this conscience makes cowards of us all,
Lady in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered.

References

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Philip Edwards, ed., updated edition 2003. (New Cambridge Shakespeare)
• Hamlet. Harold Jenkins, ed., 1982. (The Arden Shakespeare)
• Lewis, C.S., Studies in Words. Cambridge UP, 1960 (reprinted 2002).
• Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I. E.F.J. Payne, tr. Falcon Wing's Press, 1958. Reprinted by Dover, 1969.
• "Something Rotten". Jasper Forde 2004
• "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". Washington Square Press, ed., 1992. (Folger Shakespeare Library)

External links

• 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.