4b. Literary Fragment(s)

➜ Below you will find two fragments from Hamlet and Othello.
➜ Read the original text on the left and use the modern translation on the right to help you understand the fragments better.
➜ Do the exercise you will find after each fragment.
➜ Upload screenshots of your results to Seesaw, and copy the link to your Literary History File in Egodact.

 

Hamlet - To be or not to be... Act 3, Scene 1

Introduction: this is the most famous soliloquy (=a long speech where a character talks to himself/herself or voices his/her thoughts aloud for the benefit of the audience) from Hamlet, starting with what is probably the most famous line from Shakespeare's entire repertoire: "To be, or not to be, that is the question".

In this soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates the point of his existence: should he take action and fight against his fate, or give up, accept defeat and end it all.

soliloquy

modern translation

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 [...]

The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?

Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things

that luck throws your way,

or to fight against all those troubles

by simply putting an end to them once and for all?

Dying, sleeping—that’s all dying is—a sleep

that ends all the heartache and shocks

that life on earth gives us

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

[...] Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of? [...]

After all, who would put up with all life’s humiliations—

Who would choose to grunt and sweat through an

exhausting life, unless they were afraid of something

dreadful after death, the undiscovered country

from which no visitor returns, which we wonder about

without getting any answers from

and which makes us stick to the evils we know

rather than rush off to seek the ones we don’t?

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.

Fear of death makes us all cowards,

and our natural boldness becomes weak

with too much thinking.

Actions that should be carried out at once

get misdirected, and stop being actions at all.

 

Othello - How am I then a villain? Act 2, Scene 3

Introduction: Cassio has fallen out of favour with Othello, and asks Iago for advice. Iago tells him to go to Desdemona and ask her to speak to Othello on his behalf. He plans to tell Othello that Desdemona is secretly in love with Cassio, to make him jealous when she brings him up.

IAGO

 

And what’s he then that says I play the villain?

When this advice is free I give and honest,

Probal to thinking and indeed the course

To win the Moor again? […]

His soul is so enfettered to her love,

That she may make, unmake, do what she list,

Even as her appetite shall play the god

With his weak function. How am I then a villain

To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,

Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!

When devils will the blackest sins put on

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows

As I do now. For whiles this honest fool

Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune

And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,

I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear:

That she repeals him for her body’s lust.

And by how much she strives to do him good

She shall undo her credit with the Moor.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch

And out of her own goodness make the net

That shall enmesh them all.

IAGO

 

Who can say I’m evil

when my advice is so good?

That’s really the best way

to win the Moor back again[…]

He’s so enslaved by love

that she can make him do

whatever she wants.

How am I evil

to advise Cassio to do exactly what’ll do him good?

That’s the kind of argument you’d expect from Satan!

When devils are about to commit their biggest sins

they put on their most heavenly faces,

just like I’m doing now. And while this fool

is begging Desdemona to help him,

and while she’s pleading his case to the Moor,

I’ll poison the Moor’s ear against her,

hinting that she’s taking Cassio’s side because of her lust for him.

The more she tries to help Cassio,

the more she’ll shake Othello’s confidence in her.

And that’s how I’ll turn her good intentions

into a big trap

to snag them all.