In this soliloqey, one of Shakespeare's most famous, Hamlet is considering the option of ending his life rather than facing up to the unfortunate circumstances that confront him. He knows that his father was killed by his uncle, who with the help of Hamlet's mother, usurped the throne, and that he will very likely be killed unless he, himself avenges his father's death.

Soliloquey

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 heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. 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,           (coil=fuss),

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,      (contumely=arrogance)

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               (quietus=death)

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,      (bodkin=dagger, fardels=burden)

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn      (bourn=destination)

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 enterprise of great pitch 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           (orisons=prayers)

Be all my sins remembered.

—William Shakespeare