셰익스피어의 비극 작품을 이번 여름에 읽으며 고통과 즐거움을 동시에 누렸습니다. 셰익스피어의 다른 비극 작품보다 햄릿에 더 매력을 느겼으며, 햄림의 유명한 방백(soliloquy) ‘To be, or not to be’에 아주 강하게 끌렸습니다. 유명하기 때문이라기 보다는 스스로 그 내용에 이끌렸습니다.
자신의 아버지를 죽인 이가 다름 아닌 아버지의 동생이자 현재 어머니의 남편인 왕 Claudius라는 아버지 유령의 말과 복수를 하겠다는 약속에 고뇌합니다. 그 고뇌는 단순히 ‘죽느냐 사느냐’, ‘죽이느냐 마느냐’가 아니라 자신의 고통은 물론 세상의 불합리와 부조리까지 언급하며 현실 삶의 고통을 나열합니다.
이 대사는 햄릿의 대사이지만, 동시에 제 자신이 안고 있는 고통의 많은 부분으로 느꼈습니다. 세상은 바뀌어도 인간의 사악함과 어리석음, 그리고 그에 따르는 직간접적인 인내의 고통은 여전함을 느낍니다.
아마도 그래서 저도 이 대사를 좋아하게 되었고 볼테르는 이 방백을 프랑스를 포함해 여러 유럽에 소개하고자 한 것이라 느낍니다.
이 대사를 여러번 읽으며 마침내 외워야겠다는 생각이 들었고 모두 암기하게 되었습니다. 자동차를 운전하거나 걸을 때 주로 암기했습니다.
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 despis’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 undiscover’d 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.
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 despis’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 undiscover’d 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.
– Excerpt From: William Shakespeare. “Hamlet”
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