Gu Zhenbiao's 61 Lectures on Foreign Literature (Student Edition)

Author: Fu Jingchuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: In Hamlet (Act 3, Scene), "To be or not to be, that is the question"; to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them—which is more noble? 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; 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.
Haste, fair Ophelia!—nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies, with its theme drawn from the History of Denmark by the Danish historian Saxo. It tells the story of a Danish prince avenging his father's murder. The Danish king dies suddenly, and his brother Claudius succeeds to the throne, marrying the queen in haste. The young prince Hamlet, the son of the late king, harbors a deep resentment toward this turn of events. One day, the ghost of his father appears to him and reveals the truth: the treacherous Claudius, using sweet words to deceive the queen, had conspired with her to poison the king. Hamlet swears to avenge his father. He feigns madness to confuse his enemies and uses the opportunity of a play-within-a-play in the court to expose Claudius's true nature. Hamlet accidentally kills the old counselor Polonius, and Claudius seizes the chance to send him to England, planning to have him killed by the English king. Hamlet foils this plot and returns to Denmark. Claudius then incites Polonius's son Laertes to duel with Hamlet, preparing a poisoned sword and a poisoned cup to ensure Hamlet's death. However, during the duel, both men are accidentally stabbed with the poisoned blade, the queen drinks the poisoned cup, and the dying Laertes exposes Claudius's treachery. In a fit of rage, Hamlet kills Claudius and is himself poisoned.
The passage quoted above is Hamlet's soliloquy before his act of revenge. Hamlet is a young man of ideals and deep reflection, who, during his studies, embraced the highly advanced humanism of his time.