Back to list of pages

Hamlet's Soliloquy In Limericks

Should one be or should one not be?
Well, does it seem nobler to me
To suffer the slings
(And other harsh things)
That fortune throws outrageously,

Or that sea of troubles defy
And, opposing, to end it? To die,
Is merely to sleep.
No more, not a peep
And by this sleep thus say goodbye

To the thousands of shocks and heartache
That humanity's heritage make:
This consummation
Desire with devotion!
To die, to sleep - while not awake

We might dream, and that's very rum
For when we're dead, what dreams may come
When our coil's been shuffled
Must make us feel ruffled
And feel a long life must be dumb!

For who would bear life's whips and scorns,
Oppression, what contumely spawns
Despised love (that's sore!),
Delays of the law,
Office's insolence, spurns

The unworthy imposes on patience
When merit might make its quietions
With one bodkin bare.
Carry fardels? Who'd care,
Under life to make perspirations -

But that something coming post-death
(Which might lead to an intake of breath),
The unknown terrain
From which none come again
Can certainly puzzle us (Yeth!),

And lead us to stand present ills
Rather than flee to the hills
To ones we don't know.
We don't do it. And so
Our conscience can give us the chills,

And our resolve's naked hue
With thought's pale cast sickens too
Each great enterprise
In disarray flies
And of action hasn't a clue.

Next project: Anna Karenina in clerihews

Set up March 1999

Last updated 27 March 1999