Hamlet
27 Gennaio 2019Hamlet by William Shakespeare
27 Gennaio 2019HAMLET: –If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come –
the readiness is all. (William Shakespeare)
That’s one of Shakespeare’s most profound meditations on fate and acceptance. Hamlet speaks these words to Horatio just before the final duel, having reached a kind of philosophical peace with mortality and the uncertainty of when death might come.
The passage captures a beautiful paradox about time and inevitability – that what will happen will happen, regardless of when, and our role is simply to be prepared. There’s a Stoic quality to Hamlet’s conclusion that “the readiness is all” – suggesting that our control lies not in the timing of events, but in our preparedness to meet whatever comes.
It’s remarkable how Shakespeare distills such complex ideas about fate, free will, and human agency into such elegant, almost musical language. The repetitive structure (“if it be now… if it be not to come… if it be not now”) creates a kind of logical loop that mirrors how we might actually think through an inevitable but uncertain future.
