SPAMlet

parody of Prince Hamlet’s soliloquy from Hamlet; originally written for the AuroraMUD world created by Elfi

To MUD, or not to MUD, that is the Question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the ones and zeroes of outrageous Binary,
or take Armes against a sea of data,
and by opposing terminate it: to disconnect, to sleepe,
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
the wrist-ake, and the thousand naturall shockes
that a phone line is heyre too? ‘Tis a consummation
devoutly to be wish’d. To disconnect to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Live; Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleepe of disconnection, what dreames may come,
When we have shuffel’d off this Tiny coile,
Must give us pawse. There’s the respect
That makes Calamity of so long online:

For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of +Gods,
The Builders wrong, the poore mans Low Bandwidth,
The pangs of despiz’d @mail, the Lag’s delay,
The insolence of +Wizards, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
With the typed word QUIT? Who would these Fardles beare
To type and read within an online life,

But that the dread of something after disconnection,
The undiscover’d Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traveller returnes, Puzzels the will,
And makes us rather beare those illes we have,
Than flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Real Life does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of High Resolution
Is sicklied o’re, with the green cast of monochrome;
And Memberships of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Titles turne away,
And lose the name of Quester. Soft you now,
The faire Aurora? Jenn, in thy logs
Be all my typoes remembred.

2006