A DEVIL’S Response to HAMLET’S Big Question: “To Be Or Not To Be”?

Pneuma by Daniel Finneran

In a previous episode, we meditated over a question than which, in my opinion, there simply is none bigger, more profound, nor more important:

“TO BE, OR NOT TO BE”.

(Or, in other words: to keep on living, or to give up and die).

This is the famously quotable line with which Act III of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” opens.

Hamlet, the troubled Prince of Denmark does what he does best: he dithers. I suppose, ultimately, he decides NOT to be (a decision for which nearly everyone close to him suffers).

In “Paradise Lost”, the great epic written by John Milton, an unlikely proponent of the “TO BE” position, Belial (one of Satan’s fellow demons!) comes forth and answers Hamlet.

He says, in short:

“To be no more; sad cure; for who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being”?

Join in this fascinating meditation as we explore a devil’s “pro-life” response to Shakespeare’s Hamlet!

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May you enjoy tranquility and bliss!