‘To be or not to be, that is the question’ is the most famous soliloquy in the works of Shakespeare – quite possibly the most famous soliloquy in literature. Read Hamlet’s famous soliloquy below with a modern translation and full explanation of the meaning of ‘To be or not to be’. We’ve also pulled together a bunch of commonly asked questions about Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, and have a couple of top performances of the soliloquy to watch.
Jump to section: Full soliloquy | Analysis | Performances | FAQs | Final read
Let’s start with a read-through of Shakespeare’s original lines:
Hamlet’s ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ Speech, Act 3 Scene 1
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 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 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 undiscover’d 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 the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
Hamlet ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ Analysis
TL:DR
Hamlet is thinking about life and death. It is the great question that Hamlet is asking about human existence in general and his own existence in particular – a reflection on whether it’s better to be alive or to be dead.
The in-depth version
The first six words of the soliloquy establish a balance. There is a direct opposition – to be, or not to be. Hamlet is thinking about life and death and pondering a state of being versus a state of not being – being alive and being dead.
The balance continues with a consideration of the way one deals with life and death. Life is a lack of power: the living are at the mercy of the blows of outrageous fortune. The only action one can take against the things he lists among those blows is to end one’s life. That’s the only way of opposing them. The ‘sleep of death’ is therefore empowering: killing oneself is a way of taking action, taking up arms, opposing and defeating the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Living is a passive state; dying is an active state. But in order to reach the condition of death one has to take action in life – charge fully armed against Fortune – so the whole proposition is circular and hopeless because one does not really have the power of action in life.
Death is something desirable – devoutly to be wished, a consummation – a perfect closure. It’s nothing more than a sleep. But there’s a catch, which Hamlet calls a rub. A ‘rub’ is a bowls term meaning an obstacle on the bowls lawn that diverts the bowl, so the fear of the life hereafter is the obstacle that makes us pause and perhaps change the direction of our thinking. We don’t control our dreams so what dreams may come in that sleep in which we have shuffled off all the fuss and bother of life? He uses the term ‘mortal coil,’ which is an Elizabethan word for a big fuss, such as there may be in the preparations for a party or a wedding – a lot of things going on and a lot of rushing about. With that thought, Hamlet stops to reconsider. What will happen when we have discarded all the hustle and bustle of life? The problem with the proposition is that the sleep of death is unknown and could be worse than life.
And now Hamlet reflects on a final end. A ‘quietus’ is a legal word meaning a final definitive end to an argument. He opposes this Latin word against the Celtic ‘sweating’ and ‘grunting’ of a living person as an Arab beneath an overwhelmingly heavy load – a fardel, the load carried by a camel. Who would bear that when he could just draw a line under life with something as simple as a knitting needle – a bodkin? It’s quite a big thought and it’s fascinating that this enormous act – drawing a line under life – can be done with something as simple as a knitting needle. And how easy that seems.
Hamlet now lets his imagination wander on the subject of the voyages of discovery and the exploratory expeditions. Dying is like crossing the border between known and unknown geography. One is likely to be lost in that unmapped place, from which one would never return. The implication is that there may be unimagined horrors in that land.
Hamlet now seems to make a decision. He makes the profound judgment that ‘conscience does make cowards of us all,’ This sentence is probably the most important one in the soliloquy. There is a religious dimension to it as it is a sin to take one’s life. So with that added dimension, the fear of the unknown after death is intensified.
But there is more to it than that. It is not just about killing himself but also about the mission he is on – to avenge his father’s death by killing his father’s murderer. Throughout the action of the play, he makes excuses for not killing him and turns away when he has the chance. ‘Conscience does make cowards of us all.’ Convention demands that he kill Claudius but murder is a sin and that conflict is the core of the play.
At the end of the soliloquy, he pulls himself out of this reflective mode by deciding that too much thinking about it is the thing that will prevent the action he has to rise to.
This is not entirely a moment of possible suicide. It’s not that he’s contemplating suicide as much as reflecting on life, and we find that theme all through the text. In this soliloquy, life is burdensome and devoid of power. In another, it’s ‘weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,’ like a garden overrun with weeds. In this soliloquy, Hamlet gives a list of all the things that annoy him about life: 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. But there’s a sense of agonized frustration in this soliloquy that however bad life is we’re prevented from doing anything about it by fear of the unknown.
Watch Two Theatre Greats Recite Hamlet’s Soliloquy
David Tenant as Hamlet in the RSC’s 2009 Hamlet production:
We couldn’t resist but share Patrick Stewart’s comedy take on the soliloquy for Sesame Street!
Commonly Asked Questions About ‘To Be Or Not To Be’
Why is Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech so famous?
This is partly because the opening words are so interesting, memorable and intriguing, but also because Shakespeare ranges around several cultures and practices to borrow the language for his images. Just look at how many now-famous phrases are used in the speech – ‘take arms’, ‘what dreams may come’, ‘sea of troubles’, ‘to sleep perchance to dream’. ‘sleep of death’, ‘whether tis nobler’, ‘flesh is heir’, ‘must give us pause’, ‘mortal coil’, ‘suffer the slings and arrows’, outrageous fortune’, ‘the insolence of office’… the list goes on and on.
Add to this the fact that Shakespeare is dealing with profound concepts, putting complex philosophical ideas into the mouth of a character on a stage, and communicating with an audience with a wide range of educational levels, and you have a selection of reasons as to why this soliloquy is as famous as it is. Just look at how many now phrases
How long is ‘To be or not to be’?
The ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy is 33 lines long, and consists of 262 words. Hamlet, the play in which ‘to be or not to be’ occurs is Shakespeare’s longest play with 4,042 lines. It takes four hours to perform Hamlet on the stage, with the ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy taking anywhere from two to four minutes.
Why is ‘To be or not to be’ so important?
‘To be or not to be’ is not important in itself but it has gained tremendous significance in that it is perhaps the most famous phrase in all the words of the playwright considered to be the greatest writer in the English language. It is also significant in the play, Hamlet, itself in that it goes directly to the heart of the play’s meaning.
Why does Hamlet say ‘To be or not to be’?
To be or not to be’ is a soliloquy of Hamlet’s – meaning that although he is speaking aloud to the audience none of the other characters can hear him. Soliloquies were a convention of Elizabethan plays where characters spoke their thoughts to the audience. Hamlet says ‘To be or not to be’ because he is questioning the value of life and asking himself whether it’s worthwhile hanging in there. He is extremely depressed at this point and fed up with everything in the world around him, and he is contemplating putting an end to himself.
Is ‘To be or not to be’ a metaphor?
The line ‘To be or not to be’ is very straightforward and direct, and has no metaphorical aspect at all. It’s a simple statement made up of five two-letter words and one of three – it’s so simple that a child in the early stages of learning to read can read it. Together with the sentence that follows it – ‘that is the question – it is a simple question about human existence. The rest of the soliloquy goes on to use a number of metaphors.
What is Shakespeare saying in ‘To be or not to be’?
In the ‘To be or not be to’ soliloquy Shakespeare has his Hamlet character speak theses famous lines. Hamlet is wondering whether he should continue to be, meaning to exist or remain alive, or to not exist – in other words, commit suicide. His thoughts about that develop in the rest of the soliloquy.
Why is ‘To be or not to be’ so memorable?
Ask people to quote a line of Shakespeare and more often than not it’s ‘To be or not to be’ that’s mentioned. So just what is it that makes this line of Shakespeare’s so memorable?
The line is what is known as a chiasmus because of its balance and structure, and that’s what makes it memorable. Look at this chiasmus from John F Kennedy: ‘Do not ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.’ Far more complex than Shakespeare’s line but even so, having heard it one could never forget it. The first and second halves mirror each other, the second being an inversion of the first. Winston Churchill’s speeches are full of chiasma. Even when he is joking they flow: ‘All babies look like me, but then I look like all babies.’
Chiasma are always short and snappy and say a lot in their repetition of words and their balance. And so it is with Hamlet’s speech that starts ‘to be or not to be’, arguably Shakespeare’s most memorable line – in the collective conscience centuries after the words were written and performed.
Look at the balance of the line. It has only four words: ‘to,’ ‘be,’ ‘or’ and ‘not.’ The fact is that the language is as simple as language can get but the ideas are extremely profound. ‘To take arms against a sea of troubles,’ for example, and ‘To die, to sleep, no more, but in that sleep of death what dreams may come,’ every word but one monosyllabic, go right to the heart of human existence and the deepest dilemmas of life.
Let’s try reading it again…
If you’re still with us, you should now have a pretty good understanding of the true meaning behind the words of Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech. You may have also watched two fantastic actors speak the immortal words, so should have a much clearer understanding of what messages the soliloquy is trying to convey.
With all of this in mind, why not try reading the words aloud to yourself one more time:
David Tennant speaks Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy
And that’s all for this take on Hamlet’s immortal lines. Did this page help you? Any information we’re missing that would be useful? Please do let us know in the comments section below!
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Shakespeare speaks rhetorically through Hamlet (soliloquy) of an
unknown ethereal post mortem state. There is no legitimate answer
to the living. No doubt Shakespeare paused in deep thought more than once to have been confounded and frustrated between gross disparity set betwixt life and mortality. “To Be Or Not To Be” does not represent a
real problem for Hamlet/Shakespeare. The real entity comes through a
state of being in a present tense “is” instantly becoming defacto usage for death and finality. The truth ? Only Shakespeare can define his work.
Shakespeare wrote for the masses. Why not try the same?
Dear Robin,
This above all; to thine own self be true.
When Shakespeare was asked how he felt about Hamlet not being a very successful play – he said “t’was not written for the masses”.
Also, once his theatre troupe became the King’s Men, they were pretty much writing with royalty in mind. Macbeth was in part written because the king was fascinated by witches and magic.
A classic scene from the classic 1946 western My Darling Cementine, is where the travelling Shakespearean Actor
Granville Thorndyke played by Alan Mowbray recites Hamlets soliloquy. He performs it in a saloon bar and is heckled by the
Clanton Gang, unable to continue he asks Doc Holliday played by
Victor Mature to finish it for him.
On leaving the bar Granvile says to the Clanton Gang
“Shakespeare was not meant for taverns or for tavern louts.
Check it out on Youtube
Nice Job!
I’ve always loved this soliloquy, and have memorized it. The very act of memorizing this forces one, I believe, to appreciate the nuances of the struggle that Hamlet is enduring at this point.
As an aside, I would make it clearer that the “opposing” Hamlet had in mind was that of plunging the dagger into his own heart. As for the rest, well done, indeed!
I always loved this passage too, John, and the first nine lines have been in my head for ages. I’m going to follow your example and memorize the rest. Thanks for the tip!
It behoves us to modernize Shakespeare.The poitry in fact dimands it.
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]CONSUMPTION
Divoutly to wished.To die,to sleep.
To sleep,perchance to dream.Ay,there’s the[rub]BODY-BLOW,
For,in that sleep of death,what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal[coil]SPIN
Must give us pause.There’s the[respect]LOOKING-BACK
That makes calamity of so long life;
For,who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong,the proud man’s[contumely]RIPROACH,
The pangs of dispised love,the law’s dilay,
The insolence of office,and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his[quietus]QUIET make
With[a bare bodkin]COLD-STEEL?Who would[fardels]BURDENS 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 riturns,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…
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklid o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprisis of[great pith and moment]
[With this regard]their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.Soft you,now,
The fair Ophelia!-Nymph,in thy orisons
Be all my sins rimembered.
Consummation DOES NOT mean consumption! It means fulfilment.
Rub = chafe, irritation rather than body-blow
Coil is generally agreed to mean fuss or bustle
Respect = you are correct to interpret ‘spect’ as look as in aspect, but re is generally use to mean do again. In other words look again, double check.
A bodkin is a type of large needle or spike or stiletto type dagger
And by the way: remembered, poetry, demand, reproach, returns. But I wasn’t sure if you were spelling those words with an i on purpose as an affectation.
Please, before attempting to modernize something, look into the actual meaning of the original words at the time they were written. Beware of false correlations between similar sounding words with quite different meanings.
The other day I read To be or not to be (Shakespeare) –From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2012 / 05 / 23) which I had happened to print out. It says in Interpretation that the third main point of disagreement about this speech is what the apparent theme of endurance vs. action (“ to suffer..or..take arms ”) has to do with being and nonbeing, and is further elaborated as follows, “Whether
’tis nobler in the mind to suffer…Or to take arms…” seems clearly to ask whether it is better to be stoically passive to life’s troubles or heroically active against them. The trouble is how this relates to ‘to be or not to be’ …
There is a considerable disagreement over the very question presented here in Interpretation ( how the theme of the whether clause relates to ‘to be or not to be’), and I do not think that this quite reasonable question is attached as much importance as it should be.
The following is my interpretation of the first few lines of Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, (To be, or not to be: that is the question:/ Whether ’tis nobler ~/And by opposing end them? [ To die: to sleep; / No more;]).
I would appreciate it very much if I could have any comments on it.
First of all, I assume that ‘to be’ means ‘to live, to exist, to be alive, or to continue to exist’ and ‘not to be’ ‘to die, to cease to exist, or to commit suicide’ and that in this soliloquy Hamlet uses ‘to be’ to allude to life and action and ‘not to be’ to death and inaction, though he is not talking directly about himself and thinking more generally about life or death; and I discuss the question on the premise that this assumption is correct.
The whether clause, which is most probably an amplification, seems generally thought to have much the same meaning as a common Japanese translation of this part: ‘Which is nobler, to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?’ But it is unreasonable and I do not agree, because ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question.’ and ‘Whether ’tis nobler ~to suffer ~ , or to take ~?’ are then two different questions that have different meanings, and the whether clause does not function as a consistent elaboration on the question of whether to continue to exist or not. I will give a supplementary explanation below.
In my judgment, the “or” in line 1 does not parallel the “or” in line 4, and to suffer ~ and to take ~ are two contrasting examples used to explain ‘to be’, and there is little doubt that Hamlet uses ‘to be’ to allude to life and action and ‘not to be’ to death and inaction (like killing himself with a bare dagger)(ll.20-21). ‘Not to be’ does not imply life and action as some think it does, much less heroic action (like taking arms ~and end them)(ll.4-5); it means death without doing anything.
Besides, as is clearly shown by a certain Japanese translation ( Which way of life is nobler, to suffer ~, or to take arms ~ ? ), to suffer ~ and to take arms ~ are both ways of life –courses of action open for Hamlet in his present difficult situation, though noticeably different from each other, stoically passive vs. heroically active. Thus the question of whether to continue to exist or not is again totally different from the question of which is nobler of the two ways of living – two courses of action; there is no logical connection between the two.
My (grammatical) interpretation of the whether clause is as follows. Although the pronoun ’it’ in ’tis indicates to suffer ~ and to take arms ~ , the whole clause does not mean ‘Which is nobler, to suffer ~ , or to take arms ~?’ It means ‘Is to be nobler (than not to be)?’, that is to say, ‘ Is to suffer ~, or to take arms ~ ( no matter which ) really nobler ( than to die )?’ Taken literally, ‘to take arms ~’ obviously implies life and action, and that heroic action, (“though perhaps with the loss of life”) and does not equal ‘not to be’ as some think it does. So the equivalence is between ‘to be’ and ‘to suffer ~, or to take arms ~’ and between ‘not to be’ and ‘To die’ (l.5), which is the other alternative not expressed but understood in the whether clause. Thus I do not think, as some do, that Hamlet, without any sort of transition, suddenly starts to contemplate death. He merely begins to talk about the other alternative of nonbeing after talking about the alternative of being; and therefore the whether clause and ‘To die: to sleep; / No more;’ fit together well and logically and they form a united whole.
I think this is the only way to make the whether clause a more consistent elaboration on the question of whether to continue to exist or not, and that “Shakespearean grammar” would permit this explanation.
Very interesting notion. That seems to make more sense in grammatical point of view.
In that interpretation, Hamlet should be contemplating three options to take: 1. To be passively and to suffer…., 2. To be actively and to take arms…., 3. To commit suicide.
But in the whole context of the soliloquy, to be (alive) or to die (as a consequence of action) seems to be two ways of options to decide on.
So how to live whether in nobler way or not is out of question here, in my opinion.
I guess Shakespeare in fact meant for “which is…” by “Whether it is….” in more elegant expression.
About a part of TRANSLATION in the main article, “That patient merit of the unworthy” meant the plain & ordinary people’s virtue of being patient (of spurns or whatever), in my opinion.
Please correct me if I am wrong. In fact, I memorized the whole soliloquy as my usual habit with other impressive and memorable poems.
I don’t think that the two questions have different meanings. The second is just an elaboration of the first. The second assumes that the choice between the two alternative should be based on which one is “nobler.” If you choose “to be”, you have to “suffer the slings and arrows..”; you choose “not to be”, as another poster points out, by “taking arms against a sea of troubles and…end[ing] them”.
Much is written about the relationship of this soliloquy with the ethical question of suicide, especially in connection with Christianity. No doubt that idea has a role to play here, but it seems to me that that role is often exaggerated. After all, Hamlet concludes that people are generally afraid to commit suicide because they cannot know what it is like to be dead. I think that the relationship of that sentiment with Christianity is much more interesting. That sentiment is a lack of faith in Christian teachings about the afterlife.
I think that he phrase “patient merit” refers to those people with that quality: it’s an example of the figure of speech called metonymy. think that the sense of the phrase is “the spurns that people of patient merit take from those who are unworthy ( perhaps, among other reasons, for failing to appreciate what those of patient merit have to offer).
Thank you very much for your comment of June 26, 2015.
You say Hamlet should be contemplating three options: 1) to suffer…, 2) to take arms…, 3) to commit
suicide, but that to be or to die seems to be two options to decide on.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer …Or to take arms … seems to ask which is nobler to suffer …or to take arms… But I think it means ‘Is to be nobler (than not to be)?’, that is to say, ‘ Is to suffer ~, or to take arms ~ ( no matter which ) really nobler ( than to die )?’ and so to suffer …or to take arms…
is one option instead of two options.
As for ‘the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy take’, I think it means ‘the insults that deserving people have to take from powerful inferiors’ (take of the unworthy) of = from
Thanks for your great interpretation. I agree that there are only 2 questions essentially, but I think it may have another dimension. Consider it like this:
Hamlet could be saying, if you choose to live you are going to have to then *further* choose between being a victim or a “hero”, both of which are hardships. But then you could say: you can “end” the troubles by taking up arms and being the hero, so it is only a temporary hardship, so a therefore a good choice!! But is this a realistic choice? Can you truly “end” injustice in the world regardless of your skill in fighting it? By saying ‘end them’ he may be describing a naive, quixotic type heroism, speaking in a sarcastic kind of way… so again, not a very great choice to the wise (or perhaps cynical) man who sees it as a doomed enterprise either way if you choose the Life option.
So in essence it becomes: Do I stay alive and lead a miserable life, regardless of whether I choose a cowardly, shameful struggle or a vain and violent struggle that seems noble but is ultimately folly?
Or do I take the risk that death is peaceful rather than a choice leading to endless isolation, nightmares, guilt, or possibly hell fire? And even if you decide that suicide is logically the best choice because it at least has a chance at a decent outcome (peaceful,though ignoble rest), you are too cowardly to follow through with it because of fear of the possible endless guilt or endless hell fire, which seems far worse than the 2 miserable life outcomes..
A conundrum of epic and depressing proportions where no outcome is really very great… just another take on it.
Kiyoshi:
We are being asked to consider only two options, to suffer all of the very real pains of this life, in order that we not have to face death, until it finally comes (which it will), or to take up arms and do something about it, even if it kills us. The issue is that we don’t know what’s on the other side. If we fight the oppression, we may die sooner than we wish. Then the case will be that we will find ourselves all the sooner in a place we don’t want to be. We don’t know because no one has come back to tell us of it. So we are left with the decision: simply suffer on, in order to avoid death, or fight not to suffer and risk dying into the unknown. I’m sure suicide is not a part of the question.
I dont know about anyone else, but ive been waiting to see Arnold’s adaptation of Hamlet since i saw it in the Last Action Hero. Looked pretty good to me.
There’s a sort-of modern, off-beat production of hamlet going in NYC that’s slightly different from the original (I believe?) called Sleep No More.
If Hamlet is the crown for English literature, this particular piece is the crowning piece. Be it the philosophical intensity or the psychological struggle of Hamlet, everything fits to make it perfect. No one can ever write or even think to reach the complex beauty of Shakespeare. It is evident through this soliloquy.
you spelt ‘aye’ wrong in ‘ay there’s the rub”
That’s how it was written in the book. lol.
Sons of Anarchy is based on Hamlet.
As is The Lion King
What a great read and the timing is nothing short of perfection. I choose to agree that the fear of the unknown consumes any “High Hopes” or seemingly certain promise of a “Dream” when the risk is deemed greater than the reward. When nothing but victory stands between the dreamer and his coveted dream, will the acquisition become real. Within my own life I have noticed that Fear and a false sense of self has kept me in bondage for far to long. A man in the chase of something he has placed valued on must either risk the unknown and charge forward in confidence or walk away without reference to it ever again.