William Shakespeare | 1564-1616, English
from As You Like It
, Act II:VII spoken by Jaques
Shakespeare, in the following lines, tells us that all drama is not in a theater, but that life itself is one great play in which each of us has many parts. Which part are you playing now?
DUKES SENIOR TO JACQUES
"Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scenes
Wherein we play.
JACQUES:
All the world's a stage;
And all men and women merely players;
The have their exits and their entrances;
And one man, in his time, plays many parts.
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining schoolboy creeping like a nail
Unwilling to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then in justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes serene and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well-shaved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice
Turning again toward childish treble, piper
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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