Ato Blankson-Wood performs Hamlet’s famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy during the Public Theater’s production.
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TRANSCRIPT
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.
For, who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the laws 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 undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler 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.
