To Be or Not to Be -Hamlet's Soliloquy by William Shakespeare (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

There's a video on vimeo using this reading:
http://vimeo.com/21764243

This soliloquy is about taking violent action that could result in him being killed, rather than the contemplation of suicide, which was against his religious beliefs. In an earlier speech he says "O...that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! "

Hamlet has seen his father's ghost who ordered him to seek revenge on the man who murdered him, took his throne and married his wife, Hamlet's mother. The speech is about his disgust with the world. Although his own death will be a consequence, he sees his life as of no value and feels compelled to avenge his father's murder.

This predicts the course of the rest of the play - and results in the death in Hamlet and most of the other characters. At this point he turns into a desperado, who considers himself already dead. He decides to risk his own life to punish the wicked.

Hamlet's distress and strange conduct have become obvious to other members of the cast, especially to Polonius and his daughter Ophelia. Some of the subsequent victims are just innocents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Polonius who was killed when Hamlet though he was Claudius hiding behind a curtain in his mother's chamber - and indirectly Ophelia who is driven insane and dies of grief after the death of her father. By the end of the play most of the rest of the cast are dead too, including Ophelia's brother, Laertes.

Gertrude, his mother, is poisoned by wine intended for him by wicked uncle Claudius, who has also poisoned Laertes' sword. Hamlet does not know about the poisoned wine nor the poisoned sword.

In the duel between Hamlet and Laertes the swords are switched and both sustain minor wounds - meaning that they will both die. Hamlet did not intend to kill Laertes - and nor does he realise he himself will die until Laertes tells him so:

"Hamlet, thou art slain; no medicine in the world can do thee good; in thee there is not half an hour of life..." Hamlet acknowledges, "The point!--envenom'd too! Then, venom, to thy work."

Hamlet then he stabs uncle Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink the the poisoned wine, saying "Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion...follow my mother".

Horatio then takes the cup, saying there's some poison left and saying, "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane" meaning that he's about to drink it to die with his friend. But Hamlet forcibly takes the cup from him and charges Horatio with the task of telling his story to the world as the only living witness.

Thus Hamlet did not kill himself, he was murdered. It was a risk he knew he was taking because Claudius had already murdered his father.