That's The Way Love Goes

Chapter 4

‘’Ashley, can you read To Be, Or Not To Be, that is the question to the class?’’ asked teacher. I had been asleep and she woke me up. Damn.

I had always liked William Shakespeare. I stood up and started reading To be, or not to be, that is the question:

‘’To be, or not to be, that is the question. William Shakespeare.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis noble 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 five us pause- there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bare the whips and scorns of time,

Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pang 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 undiscovere’d 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?

Thus conscience does make coward 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.’’

‘’That was beautiful. You may sit down now. Thank you. Class, dismissed.’’

I put my book into my bag and walked outside the classroom.

‘’Wow,’’ said a voice that I identified as Austin’s.