Shakespeare question. Can you tell me?

Question

How does that To be or not to be go? That is my question..

Answer 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,
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 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 pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

It depends on which version you look at.

http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/hamlet.html

A unique feature of Q1
While Q1 lacks the literary polish of the longer texts (a quick comparison of the Q1 and Q2 versions of ‘To be or not to be’ (Q1 D4v-E1r; Q2 G2r-v) will make this evident), it is by no means an incompetent or unactable text, as numerous professional and amateur productions have demonstrated. It speeds up the action of the play and its language is surprisingly intelligible and accessible. At a late point it contains a unique scene between the Queen and Horatio (H2v-H3r) after Ophelia’s mad scene (4.5) and before the King’s scene with Laertes (4.7). This not only suggests a conspiracy between Hamlet’s supporters to counter that between his enemies, but neatly abridges material found in three separate scenes in the longer texts: Hamlet’s letter to Horatio (4.6, L2v-L3r), his letter to the King (4.7, L3v) and his account to Horatio of events on his voyage to England (5.2, N1r-N2r).

The soliloquies in Q1
Given the importance of Hamlet’s soliloquies to our understanding of the dominance and centrality of his role (and indeed to the enormous cultural prestige of the play), it seems significant that Q1 omits one of them altogether and presents the most famous of them all in a different scene from where we are used to finding it. The missing soliloquy is the last one, ‘How all occasions doe informe against me’, found in Q2 (4.4, K3r-v) after Hamlet has observed the army of Fortinbras. In Q1 this is an extremely short scene (G4v) in which Hamlet does not appear. The Folio text also lacks this soliloquy and has a similarly short scene (p.273). Some have argued that this is a deliberate authorial revision, part of a pattern of ‘cuts’ introduced in order to abridge the play for performance, but this seems debatable, given that F remains an extremely long text.

Most startlingly, Q1 presents ‘To be or not to be’ in its equivalent of 2.2 rather than in 3.1. In Q1 it follows straight on from the decision of the King and his councillor (who is called Corambis in Q1) to spy on Hamlet and Ophelia when Hamlet enters ‘poring vppon a booke’ (D4v). In Q2 there are some 500 lines between Hamlet’s entry with his book (F1r) and his delivery of the soliloquy (G2r-v). These cover the ‘fishmonger’ dialogue with Polonius, Hamlet’s first encounter with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the arrival of the Players, the performance of the speech about Pyrrhus, Priam and Hecuba, and Hamlet’s ‘O what a rogue and pesant slaue am I’ soliloquy. Q1 has its (shorter) versions of all this material, but after rather than before ‘To be or not to be’. Several productions of the longer texts have chosen to follow Q1’s placing of the speech, on the grounds that it makes more sense psychologically. Having finally come up with a plan at the end of 2.2 (‘the play’s the thing / Wherein Ile catch the conscience of the King’, Q2 G1r), it seems strange that Hamlet should enter only 50 lines later contemplating suicide.

Does Q1 derive from an acting version?
We do not know what Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences saw and heard when they went to early performances of Hamlet. They are unlikely to have experienced the four-hour version familiar to us in modern editions. They may have experienced a shorter acting version similar in structure (if not in the details of its language) to Q1. In so far as it does seem to be accepted that Q1 is closest to such an acting version, should we redefine it as the good quarto

Answer 4

To be or not to be