from As you like it

William Shakepeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii, 139-166

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 a pard,

Jealous in honor, 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 slippered 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.

From As You Like It,

William Shakespeare

line 6 mewling: whimpering

10 ballad: poem

12 pard: leopard

13 jealous in honor: sensitive about his honor

14 bubble reputation: fame as quickly burst as a bubble

16 good capon lined: a lined pocket of a coat, meaning one bribed with the present of a fat chicken. In Shakespeare's day it was a common complaint that those who wished for justice from county magistrates had to bring presents with them. Such magistrates were known as basket justices.