To be, or not to be: that is the question——Hamlet's Soliloquy by Shakespeare

“To be, or not to be: that is the question”。哈姆雷特的沉思，世界上最著名的自言自语。这句话包含的意义太丰富，迄今为止，我尚未找到能完整阐述其意义的中文译文。“生存还是死亡，这是个问题”。这样的翻译也许仅适合哈姆雷特的情境。

“生存还是灭亡，这还是一个问题”出自莎士比亚《哈姆雷特》

Hamlet's endurance has reached the breaking point. His father has been murdered. His mother, who he loves dearly, has married her dead husband's brother. Moreover his sweetheart, Ophelia, has been acting very strangely. He senses that she does not love him any more. Now, he's all alone. The world that he knew is shattered. His black mood of despair is deepened by his inability to act - to do something to change the situation.

Now he ponders whether to continue living - or to take his own life.

Hamlet's Soliloquy: To be, or not to be: that is the question (3.1)

Annotations

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 (70)
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 despis'd love, the law's delay, (80)
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? (90)
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.-- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Continue to Soliloquy Analysis

哈姆雷特原文中译:

生存还是死亡，这是一个值得考虑的问题；

默然忍受命运的暴虐的毒箭，或是挺身反抗人世的无涯的苦难，

通过斗争把它们扫清，这两种行为，哪一种更高贵？

死了；睡着了；什么都完了；

要是在这一种睡眠之中，我们心头的创痛，以及其他无数血肉之躯所不能避免的打击，都可以从此消失，那正是我们求之不得的结局。

死了；睡着了；睡着了也许还会做梦；嗯，阻碍就在这儿：

因为当我们摆脱了这一具朽腐的皮囊以后，在那死的睡眠里，究竟将要做些什么梦，那不能不使我们踌躇顾虑。

人们甘心久困于患难之中，也就是为了这个缘故；

谁愿意忍受人世的鞭挞和讥讽、压迫者的凌辱、傲慢者的冷眼、被轻蔑的爱情的惨痛、法律的迁延、官吏的横暴和费尽辛勤所换来的小人的逼视，

要是他只要用一柄小小的刀子，就可以清算他自己的一生？

谁愿意负着这样的重担，在烦劳的生命的压迫下呻吟流汗，