The Theater of Life
All the world's a stage,
And all men and women merely players;
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and pucking 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's eyebrow. Then a solider,
Full of strange oath, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in humor, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in canon's mouth. And then the justice,
I fair round belly with a good capon lin'd
With eyes severe and a beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixt age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, 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.
William Shakespeare As You Like It, Scene II, Lines 139-166.