[Footnote 10: —aside to the king. I insert these asides, and suggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold Ophelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would believe Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he omitted that part of her father's speech in the 1st Q. given in the note immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it would be excuse enough for her, that she thought his madness justified the deception.]
[Footnote 11: —ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it—to which it lies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean, 'ugly compared with.']
[Footnote 12: 'most painted'—very much painted. His painted word is the paint to the deed. Painted may be taken for full of paint.]
[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the first assurance we have of his guilt.]
[Page 120]
Pol. I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord.
[Sidenote: comming, with-draw]
Exeunt.[1]
Enter Hamlet.[2]
Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
[Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3]
And by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub,
For in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8]
When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile,
[Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:[10]
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
[Sidenote: proude mans]
[Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay,
[Sidenote: despiz'd]
The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th']
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
[Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles
beare[13] [Sidenote: would fardels]
To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,
[Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14]
The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16]
[Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17]
Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18]
[Sidenote: sickled]
[Footnote 1: Not in Q.—They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs over the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]
[Footnote 2: In Q. before last speech.]