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Hamlet Discussion

3.1 "To be or not to be": 1603 Bad Quarto

To be, or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an everlasting Judge,
From whence no passenger ever return'd,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
But for this, the joyfull hope of this,
Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,
The Taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and seate under this weary life,
When that he may his full Quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which pussles the braine, and doth confound the sence,
Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have,
Than flie to others we know not of.
I that, O this conscience makes cowerdes of us all...

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