All the World's a Stage.
12:22:00 PM
All the World's a Stage.
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.
Then the whining schoolboy, 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 honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Even in the cannon's mouth.
Seeking the bubble reputation
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
And so he plays his part.
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
And whistles in his sound.
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
—William Shakespeare
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