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To See Or Not to See - That is the Question

Laura Joan Levine

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August 2nd, 2017 - 01:58 PM

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To See Or Not to See - That is the Question

If you could alter the famous speech of Hamlet to fit the title theme of this blog, how would you? Also what is your response to the title?
Below is the original Hamlet speech. You can tell us your version of either individual lines or the whole poem if you so choose!
Below the speech I have included my own alteration of the first half of the poem...

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 wished. 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 despised love, the law's delay,
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 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 and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Now my version:

To see, or not to see, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous illusion,
Or to take arms against a sea of deceptions,
And by opposing end them? To lose sight ; to become unaware ;
No more; and by a being unaware to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That vision is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To lose sight , to become unaware;
To become unaware : perchance to hallucinate : aye, there's the rub;
For in that blind state of unawareness what hallucinations may come
When we have shuffled off this veil ,
Must give us pause...

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