All the World’s Is a Stage
“All the World’s Is a Stage” is an extract from Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It. Jacques, a character in the play, compares human life to a drama. He compares this world to a stage and the human beings as just actors who come and go. He divides the human life into seven stages and attributes specific traits to each stage.
The first stage is that of an infant, crying and puking in the nurse’s arms. In the second stage, the school boy unwillingly goes to school. He looks bright in the morning. With his satchel, he creeps like a snail. In the third stage, the school boy grows into a young lover, who sighs like a furnace. He writes poems to his mistress, expressing his love:
“ . . . And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.”
In the fourth stage, the young man is a courageous soldier. He is quick in quarrel and seeks temporary fame in the battlefield. He does not realize that human life is transitory in nature. Reputation is like a bubble which disappears quickly.
The fifth stage is that of a person who wants all the rules to be followed strictly. He is a learned man and his judgements are full of wise sayings and modern examples.
In the sixth stage, the old man looks like a pantaloon. He is very lean and week. He wears spectacles on his nose, with pouch on his side. His leg shrinks and so the dress becomes too large for him now. His manly voice becomes a childish treble.
In the last stage, man experiences his second childhood. He loses his teeth, vision, taste, and also his memory. He is like a baby who is always under the care of a nurse. He is in a state of total oblivion without the ability to know what is happening around him.
Thus, Shakespeare divides human life into seven ages. Birth is the entrance and death the exit.
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