All the World's A Stage: As You Like It: Full Text: Blog 1B

So here is the full text of Jaques' monologue from As You Like It Act 11 Sc V11

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They 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.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly 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 the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe 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 slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Note: CP

This monologue is deeply embedded in our English psyche as a truth. And I suspect it endures because it gives order to chaos, rhythm and shape to the process of ageing, and explanation and comfort for the things we might struggle to understand.

The only thing that I suspect would be different if Shakespeare were writing this now, would be that he might find himself talking about the Nine or Ten ages of man rather than the seven! 

Watching Dustin Hoffman the other day directing his first film at 75 says a lot for how we are shifting in our attitude to age, not least aided and abetted by the pension meltdown! Bring it on. I can't think of an 80 year old let alone a 70 year old who now believes in the curtain coming down on the morning of a seventieth birthday! But of course it actually isn't just about actual chronology is it!? I know people of 20 with the wisdom of ages and people of 70 who are still children. Don't we all? 

Director's suggested exercise of the day:

Ask an actor playing a character what does he think is the actual age of his character and then ask him what is the emotional age of his character?  Its very interesting to then get them to play one, then the other and then play them together.

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