Tuesday, January 02, 2007

starting the year with Shakespeare...

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Whether`t is nobler to suffer the arrows of outrageous fortune or 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 thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to.

‘T is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

To die, to sleep…

A chance to dream.

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 a life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time the proud man’s contumely the insolence of office, the law’s delay, the pangs of disprized love when he himself might his own quietus make with a bare bodkin?

Who would fardless bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life were it not the dread of something after death the undiscovered country to whose bourn no traveler returns and puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we not know of.

And 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 in this regard, their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

HAMLET William Shakespeare