Original Text | Modern Text | |
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POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here. (to
CLAUDIUS) Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves. (to
OPHELIA)Read on this book
That show of such an exercise may color
Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
'Tis too much proved, that with devotion’s
visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
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POLONIUS
Ophelia, come here.—(to
CLAUDIUS) Your Majesty, we will hide.
(to
OPHELIA)—Read from this
prayer book, so it looks natural that you’re all alone.
Come to think of it, this happens all the time—people act
devoted to God to mask their bad deeds.
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55 |
CLAUDIUS
(aside) Oh,
’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!
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CLAUDIUS
(to himself) How right he is! His
words whip up my guilty feelings. The whore’s pockmarked
cheek made pretty with make-up is just like the ugly actions
I’m disguising with fine words. What a terrible guilt I
feel!
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POLONIUS
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
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POLONIUS
I hear him coming. Quick, let’s hide, my lord.
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CLAUDIUS and
POLONIUS withdraw |
CLAUDIUS and
POLONIUS hide. | |
Enter HAMLET
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HAMLET enters. | |
60 65 70 |
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 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. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
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HAMLET
The question is: is it better to be alive or dead? Is it nobler to
put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to
fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them
once and for all? Dying, sleeping—that’s all
dying is—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks
that life on earth gives us—that’s an
achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe
to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch: in
death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come,
after we’ve put the noise and commotion of life behind
us. That’s certainly something to worry about.
That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our
sufferings so long.
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