Death in Art, Philosophy, and Religion

Literary Sources

	To die: to sleep: 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end                          
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to,--'t is 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, 
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 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?

Philosophical Sources

Religious Traditions