To be, or not to be

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For the 1942 film, see To Be or Not to Be (1942 film). For the Mel Brooks remake, see To Be or Not to Be (1983 film)

The phrase "to be, or not to be" originates from a famous Shakespearean soliloquy by the main protagonist Prince Hamlet from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in the first scene of Act Three. In it, Hamlet contemplates the pros and cons of continuing life ("To be") or preferring death ("not to be"). Some commentators have read it as a debate on suicide. Other commentators have argued that it is a description of how one's ideas and visions seldom seem to come to fruition, due to one's own indecisiveness. This speech is perhaps not only the most famous soliloquy in the whole of Shakespeare's works, but perhaps also in world literature.

In popular culture, this monologue being the most well known and well remembered scene of the play, is easily confused with another equally known scene, when Hamlet discovers Yorick's skull, which however occurs in a wholly different point of the play. During that scene his actual words were Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio. However Hamlet is mostly remembered as reciting the to be or not to be monologue holding the skull.

The soliloquy in full form is as follows:

One of the clearest summaries of this soliloquy was provided by Schopenhauer :

There have been several films entitled To Be or Not to Be. Other films taking their titles from this speech include Outrageous Fortune, What Dreams May Come and ' which has a number of references to the works of Shakespeare. As Hamlet has been translated into "original" Klingon, the Klingon translation of the term is ''taH pagh taHbe.

The Danish translation of the phrase is at være, eller ikke at være.

The English composer Ivor Novello wrote a musical called Perchance to Dream.

This Mortal Coil is the name of a British goth supergroup, as well as a song by British death metal band Carcass.

The first three lines are an anagram of "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten". Hamlet reveals that his self-doubt and inability to avenge his father’s death have led him to the brink of suicide.

Note: In the line And enterprises of great pith and moment, we use pith although some use pitch. Pitch comes from the Harold Jenkins edit while pith is believed to be the original text.

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