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Hamlet's Aside by William Shakespeare is a speech within his play Hamlet, and is thought by some to be the best work ever written. It deals with the life and death of man, and how he fights with his feelings towards their unfairness.



In this speech, Hamlet talks about whether or not to kill himself. He thinks about which is better- living or dying- and thinks that, in the end, death is the better choice... but most are too scared of what comes after death.

An overbringing of Hamlet's Aside[]

To be, or not to be – that is the asking:
Whether ‘tis worthier in the mind to bear 
The slings and arrows of unbound mishap 
Or to take fight against a sea of agenbite
And by gainstanding end them. To die, to sleep – 
No more – and by a sleep to say we end 
The heartache, and the thousand worldly blows 
That flesh is born to. ‘Tis an ending 
Dearly to be wished. To die, to sleep – 
To sleep – maybe to dream: ay, there’s the rub, 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shed our living body, 
Must make us stop. There’s the thought 
That makes wretchedness of so long life. 
For who would bear the whips and slights of time, 
Th’ overlord’s wrong, the strutter’s cockiness 
The wrench of unanswered love, the law’s sloth, 
The brazenness of might, and the spurns 
That forbearing goodness of th’ unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his settling make 
With a bare bradawl? Who would burdens bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that dread of something after death, 
The shrouded land, from whose bosom 
No wayfarer comes home, upsets the will 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than to fly to others we know not of? 
Thus awareness does make chickens of us all, 
And thus the inborn hue of a strong will 
Is sicklied o’er with the wan cast of thought, 
And undertakings of great worth and weight 
Upon this heed their flood eddies and ebbs 
And lose the name of doing. – Soft thee now, 
The fair Ophelia! – Maiden, in thy beseeching 
Bear all my sins in mind. 
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