UnPoetia:To cheat or not to cheat

Poetry for people who hate poetry

"To cheat or not to cheat" is a well-known monologue in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In it, Prince Hamlet contemplates cheating in the upcoming end-of-term test, expressing fear in failing the exam, but acknowledging that cheating may be worse, famously declaring that "conscience does make cowards of us all".

The poem is one of the most widely known in Shakespearean plays, and continues to be quoted and recited by millions of English-speaking schoolchildren worldwide.

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To cheat, or not to cheat, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of an outrageous F,
Or to take arms against a sea of teachers
And by opposing end them. To bribe—to cheat,
to pass; and by cheating to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That I'll be heir to: 'tis an excellent grade
Devoutly to be wish'd. To bribe, to cheat;
To cheat, perchance to pass—ay, there's the rub:
For in that wait of death what marks may come,
When we have completed this maths paper,
Must give us pause—there's the report
That makes calamity of so low grades.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'invigilator's eye, the proud nerd's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd grades, the mail's delay,
The insolence of teachers, and the spurns
That patient merit of the stupid take,
When he himself might with pencil make
But a wrong answer? Why would markers care,
That ye shall scream and swear under an F-minus?
But that the dread of something after tests,
The undiscovere'd mistake, from whose bourn
No student returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those marks we have
Than cheat on others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native sine of 60°
Is sicklied o'er with the errored answer of 13/15,
And cheaters of great pitch and moment
With this regard their answers turn awry
And fail the end o'term test.