To be,--or not to be;--that is the question:-- Whether 't is n.o.bler 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,--'t is 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 despised love, the law's 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 traveller 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; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, with this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

Shakespeare.

CCXLII.

SOLILOQUY OF HAMLET'S UNCLE.

Oh! my offence is rank; it smells to heaven; It hath the primal, eldest curse upon 't, A brother's murder! Pray I cannot, Though inclination be as sharp as 't will: My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood; Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy, But to confront the visage of offence?

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force,-- To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past.--But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder!"

That cannot be; since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the murder,-- My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned, and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 't is not so above; There is no shuffling; there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can: what can it not?

Yet what can it, when one can not repent?

O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engag'd! Help, angels! make a.s.say!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

Shakespeare.

CCXLIII.

PERSEVERANCE KEEPS HONOR BRIGHT.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingrat.i.tudes.

Those sc.r.a.ps are good deeds past, which are devoured As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done, Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honor bright. To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For Honor travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For Emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost;-- Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not Virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, alacrity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating Time.

One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin,-- That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds, Though they are made and moulded of things past; And give to dust, that is a little gilt, More land than gilt o'erdusted.

The present eye praises the present object: Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what not stirs: The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent; Whose glorious deeds, did but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions 'mongst the G.o.ds themselves, And drave great Mars to faction.

Shakespeare.

CCXLIV.

MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY.

Is this a dagger, which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? come, let me clutch thee:-- I have thee not; and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight, or art thou but A dagger of the mind--a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still; And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There's no such thing: It is the b.l.o.o.d.y business, which informs Thus to mine eyes.--Know, o'er the one half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep; now Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. [A bell rings.]

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell, That summons thee to heaven or to h.e.l.l.

Shakespeare.

CCXLV.

ROMEO IN THE GARDEN.

But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!-- Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid, since she is envious: Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady: O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!-- She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold; 't is not to me she speaks: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright, That birds would sing, and think it were not night.

See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!

She speaks:-- O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him, When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Shakespeare.

CCXLVI.

POLONIUS TO LAERTES.

My blessing with you!

And these few precepts in thy memory, Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar: The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade: beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station, Are most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft, loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all,--to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man!

Shakespeare.

CCXLVII.

WOLSEY, ON BEING CAST OFF BY THE KING.

Nay, then, farewell!

I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; And, from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow, blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; And, when he thinks,--good easy man,--full surely His greatness is a ripening,--nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!

I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!

There is, betwixt that smile he would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and his ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have.

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again!

Shakespeare.

CCXLVIII.

WOLSEY TO CROMWELL.