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MODERN ENGLISH:
1500-2000 = 500 years
William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
Reproduced by Dr. ALEC GILL MBE
SHAKESPEARE'S WORLD-FAMOUS SOLILOQUY: Hamlet 3.1.56.
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 take up 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 wish'd. 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 despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy make
When he himself might his quietus make
with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bare,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death -
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the 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 enterprise of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away
And lose the name of action.
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