Robert Watson in LARB:
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.
Hamlet asks whether a Stoic detachment from the injustices of this corrupt world—a detachment that was considered a noble state of mind by many ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, and therefore by Renaissance thinkers too—is better than trying to defeat evil when you’re likely to fail and will probably die trying. My students (and Hamlet is a university student, not a full-time prince) wrestle with this question all the time: should I give my life to the important but seemingly impossible task of saving our world from everything that’s wrong with it, or should I instead focus on trying to carve out a decent little life for myself and my family, and try not to be angry and miserable in the time I have here?
Understanding this soliloquy requires understanding that in the Elizabethan period, to “suffer” something usually meant to permit it even if you didn’t like it. In the Bible translation Shakespeare’s audiences would have known best, and similarly in the still-prevalent King James translation created a few years after Hamlet, Jesus tells his disciples to “suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14; Luke 18:16 is almost identical).
More here.
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