Hamlet's Aside

Foreword

I believe Hamlet’s Aside by William Shakespeare to be one of the best written works (in itself, outside of the play) in English, and maybe in any tongue. It deals with life and death, and for man there can be no greater or higher thing to hold in thought. But also the words into which he puts these thoughts are striking and meaningful, even for him.

So believe me when I say I do not bring this work over into First English lightly, or without thought. Much thinking, brooding, seeking, asking and worrying has gone into what, in the end, is only thirty five lines of words. Sometimes I have stuck near to the words of Shakespeare, othertimes I go awander, but always I wish to get the right meaning.

Hamlet's Aside

To be, or not to be – that is the asking:

Whether ‘tis worthier in the mind to bear

The slings and arrows of unbound mishap

Or to take fight against a sea of worries

And by gainstanding end them. To die, to sleep –

No more – and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand worldly blows

That flesh is born to. ‘Tis an ending

Dearly to be wished. To die, to sleep –

To sleep – maybe to dream: ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shed our living body,

Must make us stop. There’s the thought

That makes wretchedness of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and slights of time,

Th’ overlord’s wrong, the strutter’s cockiness

The wrench of unanswered love, the law’s sloth,

The brazenness of might, and the spurns

That forbearing goodness of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his settling make

With a bare bradawl? Who would burdens bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that dread of something after death,

The shrouded land, from whose bosom

No wayfarer comes home, upsets the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than to fly to others we know not of?

Thus awareness does make chickens of us all,

And thus the inborn hue of a strong will

Is sicklied o’er with the wan cast of thought,

And undertakings of great worth and weight

Upon this heed their flood eddies and ebbs

And lose the name of doing. – Soft thee now,

The fair Ophelia! – Nymph, in thy beseeching

Bear all my sins in mind.