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"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music.
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Some also occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Bible) or are proverbial. All quotations are second quarto except as noted:
Comparison of the 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy in the first three editions of Hamlet, showing the varying quality of the text in the Bad Quarto (Q1), the Good Quarto (Q2) and the First Folio. The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall ...
"Mortal coil"—along with "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", "to sleep, perchance to dream" and "ay, there’s the rub"—is part of Hamlet’s famous "To be, or not to be" speech. Schopenhauer's speculation
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting from the Court's decision in King v.Burwell, upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, repeatedly used the construction to criticize the Court's majority opinion, stating: "Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!"; "Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!"; and ...
Even in the famous 3.1 soliloquy, Hamlet gives voice to the conflict. When he asks if it is "nobler in the mind to suffer", [80] Cantor believes that Shakespeare is alluding to the Christian sense of suffering. When he presents the alternative, "to take arms against a sea of troubles", [81] Cantor takes this as an ancient formulation of goodness.
Hamlet-like legends are so widely found (for example in Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Byzantium, and Arabia) that the core "hero-as-fool" theme is possibly Indo-European in origin. [8] Several ancient written precursors to Hamlet can be identified. The first is the anonymous Scandinavian Saga of Hrolf Kraki.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell the Queen that they will have Hamlet play a leading part in some court theatricals to distract him. Hamlet enters, and she begs them to prevent him from soliloquising. Hamlet begins, "To be – or not to be," but they interrupt him, turning the soliloquy into a trio, and urging him to commit suicide.