to be or not to be

The phrase is from Shakespeare's tragic play "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" (王子復仇記).  It is the beginning of a major soliloquy (i.e. speech spoken in the mind of a drama character, but said out loud for the audience to hear) by Hamlet, the primary character of the play:

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...

At the point of the play, Hamlet is making the decision of whether to proceed with his plan to expose the murder of his father (the former king) by the current king.  In common usage, "to be or not to be" is often quoted by a person who is about to make a difficult decision, one that is between two tough choices.  The usage is similar to "between a rock and a hard place", or 進退(leung)難 in Chinese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be%2C_or_not_to_be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet

[ 本帖最後由 gwaimuilover 於 2007-7-26 17:45 編輯 ]