“All the world’s a stage” where we play different roles and parts, “men and women merely players” (Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene VII, Lines 1-2). The stages of life (infancy, childhood, lover, soldier, judge, old age, and return to childhood “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” line 28) are indeed sobering. But knowing which stage we’re currently in is empowering. How? Because we’re never alone. We share the stage with other comedic and dramatic performers whose “acts being seven ages” (line 5) or experiences from past, present, and future are the same, regardless of age, gender, riches or fame.
Shakespeare’s mouthpiece—Jacques—contemplates the beauty and futility of life, although, properly understood in its brevity, life has a purpose for everyone. This molded purpose (pre-set stage), however, implies that we have limited control. But one can always argue that it’s in the acceptance of our limitations as a community of actors that we’re empowered to play each part, each role, each stage of our life to the fullest.
I quote each “exit and entrance” (line 3) in its entirety:
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,
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.
Now let’s compare this somber monologue with Sir Walter Raleigh’s masterpiece, “What Is Our Life?”
What is our life? A play of passion.
And what our mirth but music of division?
Our mothers’ wombs the tiring-houses be
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is Who sits and marks what here we do amiss.
The graves that hide us from the searching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus playing post we to our latest rest,
And then we die, in earnest, not in jest.
Raleigh like Shakespeare uses the Elizabethan notion of theater as a metaphor for life. Each person is destined for a brief role—comedic as it may be—with all its complexities of human experiences (“music of division”) and overwhelming emotions (“a play of passion”). The juxtaposition of “womb” and tomb (“graves”) conveys the bleakness (futility?) of life. And “Heaven” is the shrewd “spectator” or audience of our error-prone performances here on Earth—the grand stage.
In this brief yet descriptive portrayal of “our life,” each actor’s existence brings with him a series of purposeful breaths that will soon be extinguished like Jonathan Edwards’s spider hanging over the flames. But this short, emotional rollercoaster finds meaning in its mortality. Therefore, because we have but a few flickers of life between womb and tomb, let us live them not just for the final applause before the “drawn curtains,” but for the experiences and emotions that make our performances wild with “passion” and “division,” worth dying for. This is the power of accepting our play and plight in life.
But the question needs to be asked, “Is that power enough?” From what has been described in play and poem, can we then prescribe with any objectivity that the meaning of life is whatever we make it to be or whatever we want it to be, particularly because of how short and difficult life can be?
The answer to my humanistic friends is …
“Listen carefully.
Listen to the clanging of church bells
That reminds all actors
That the world’s stage was set by the One
Who entered an infant,
‘Mewling and puking’ his part to perfection.
Listen to ‘Heaven …
The judicious sharp spectator …
Who sits and marks what here we do amiss’,
Who for righteousness’ sake cannot turn away
But affectionately makes a way
Not around but through dire circumstances kiss,
Taking us from ‘Our mothers’ wombs …
The tiring-houses be …
Where we are dressed for this short comedy’,
To Heaven’s womb to be ‘born-again’
And be held like a sonnet,
Close to the bosom of eternity.”