«To be, or not to be» («Быть или не быть, вот в чём вопрос...») — название известного монолога (более точно — солилоквия) акта III сцены I пьесы «Гамлет» Уильяма Шекспира (написанной примерно в 1600 году).
В популярной визуализации произнесение полилога сопровождается фигурой Гамлета, Принца Датского, задумчиво держащего череп Йорика (Yorick, «Бедный Йорик, я знал его, Горацио…»), хотя это происходит совсем в другой части пьесы.
Гамлет не один на сцене в момент произнесения своего монолога (это типично для полилога): также на сцене Офелия, Полоний и Король Клавдий (разные постановщики лишь по-разному разворачивают Гамлета — либо он смотрит на Офелию, либо на Короля и на Полония).
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
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,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'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 undiscovered 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 pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action[2].