:: a passage discussion - in which I discuss a passage ::

you know the code that every kid thinks he came up with, and then discovers how, actually, everyone else thought of it, too -- "a=1, b=2," and so forth? well, I think it was originally shakespeare who came up with that, but he wasn't sure it would work. "2b, or not?... 2b... *frustrated sigh* that is the question." 
     all right. haha. probably, though, everyone who natively speaks english – and a few who don’t – would recognize shakespeare's most famous soliloquy’s famous opening words.
     go on. guess. 
     oh right. you’re a literature nut, too.

     today I’m going to air my doctorate in shakespeare (hahahaha‼ that made me laugh really hard‼!). honestly, I could easily come out of this looking dumb and painfully obvious. but it’s shakespeare, peoples, and it’s hamlet, so I think it’s worth it. nor am I going to point out his amazingness (we must be subtle about these things). 

to be or not to be, that is the question…

     *if you really don’t know the story of hamlet, prince of denmark, shame on you should go read it. if that just isn’t possible (i.e. you are a blind, deaf, mute person) you probably won't get it. oh well.* 

     at this point in the play, hamlet is debating -- die, or live? he asks, “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind, to suffer” or “to take arms against a sea of troubles”; in other words, is it better  -- basically -- to writhe through life in torment under the fusillage of troubles it showers on you, or -- basically -- to kill yourself in and because of those troubles?
    he first decides it would be better to die, to just forego his tribulations and end it all. death is nothing but sleep – “and by ‘a sleep’ to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”. when we die, he says, we merely rest in peace, unbeset by those “thousand natural shocks” that all people commonly bear. isn’t that the perfect solution, then -- the “consummation devoutly to be wish’d”? -- but wait, there’s more!
     *aside! (<theater pun, hahaha! ahem.) hamlet -- if you have ever, are, or will read(ing) the play --, prince of denmark, is a serious recapitulator. he decides. he rethinks. he changes his mind. it’s kind of his downfall, I guess, b…ut this isn’t about the play or even hamlet himself, and I’m getting kind of off-track.*
     “To die, to sleep,” he repeats. it strikes him differently this time. “To sleep – perchance to dream!” aye. there’s the rub. if the allegory is continued, sleep contains dreams; nightmares. this gives him pause. is it wise to die, to go into the unknown? 
     men choose to live long for even small material reward -- “the respect that makes calamity of so long life” -- because who would want to live and suffer so much (here follows a long list of bad things you could encounter in life: aging, 'thralldom', humiliation, rejection, etc. etc.) for nothing? “Who would fardels bear” (fardel: burden, load) “to grunt and sweat under a weary life…?” -- oh, don’t you just love the words? don’t you feel like you’re sweaty and exhausted from a hard day’s work just reading it? -- and he’s right. if life is nothing but toil, why not quit…
     “…but that the dread of something after death”. 
     the truth is, we don’t know what happens when we die.
     take that back. that’s not really the truth. being a christian, I do know what happens when we die, and if you’re curious what I believe, I am more than happy to tell you. but here, it’s hamlet who doesn’t know where we go when we die, and he’s afraid. you can go to Death, “that undiscovered country”, but you can’t return. ((vocabulary enrichment time‼ go look up ‘bourn’ if you don’t already know what it means. 15 my-vocab-rocks points for you! yes, this means you should have the soliloquy open next to you, reading this and that parallel-ly.)) 
      this dilemma, namely ‘live in toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble’ vs. ‘die uncertain of what happens next’, “puzzles the will”; it’s confusing; you aren’t sure what you want to do. and often, he (perhaps ruefully?) states, this confusedness makes us rather live with the known than go to the unknown: “makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of.”
      he knows he’s an over-thinker. he suspects himself of cowardice; with his rethinking, second-guessing, and back-pedaling he's convinced himself to live. disgustedly, he says, “Thus” – all this ridiculous, cross-purposed thinking – “conscience does make cowards of us all”. 
      I’ll sum up what he ends with. we are so scared of what comes after death that we convince ourselves to live and don’t do what we are supposed to do: make up our mind and follow it, pick decisively and emphatically. in this sickly way, we miss opportunities … becoming dull, sedentary beings who can’t even act.
      now I’ll let hamlet finish. ((…and thanks for reading!)) 

Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus, the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o’er with a pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith* and moment, 
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

*I’ve also heard ‘pitch’. but my edition says ‘pith’. so that’s what I’m going with.