I was at Wee Theatre with my Whulje boys last week and they were messing around on stage, and one of them said "To be or not to be" and automatically I started reciting the rest of Hamlet's soliloquy. Granted, I only got about 5 more lines in before I blanked. That, and the kids thought I was crazy, ...and I kinda was crazy cause they asked me what it meant and I actually tried to explain it to them (10 year old boys...). Maybe that's not crazy. Maybe they should know. But they didn't understand anyway, and I felt strange that I had even tried to explain it. However, they kept asking me to recite it. And it really bothered me that I couldn't remember it all. :/

Anyway, I am going to try to re-remember it. Starting now. Here it is, so I can just reference it from my blog if I need a refresher.

HAMLET: 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

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,

Th' 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 th' 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 traveler 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 enterprise of great pitch 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 remembered.