Sunday 19 April 2015

Text of the Poem | All the World's a Stage By William Shakespeare | Eureka Study Aids

1. All the world's a stage, 
2. And all the men and women merely players. 
3. They have their exits and their entrances, 
4. And one man in his time plays many parts, 
5. His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 
6. Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
7. Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
8. And shining morning face, creeping like snail
9. Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
10. Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
11. Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier
12. Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
13. Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, 
14. Seeking the bubble reputation
15. Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice, 
16. In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
17. With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
18. Full of wise saws, and modern instances, 
19. And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
20. Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, 
21. With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
22. His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
23. For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, 
24. Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
25. And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
26. That ends this strange eventful history, 
27. Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
28. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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