Benedict Cumberbatch performs William Shakespeare’s "As You Like It," the sad Jacques delivers these lines as a monologue in Act II, Scene VII. The monologue is centered on a conceit comparing life to a play. Jacques borrows this conceit from Duke Senior, who remarks after learning of Orlando’s misfortunes that:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in
Jacques, renowned for his cynical wit, immediately responds by blowing this conceit out of proportion. According to Jacques, man essentially plays seven parts in his lifetime:
- The helpless infant
- The whining schoolboy
- The emotional lover
- The devoted soldier
- The wise judge
- The clueless old man
- The corpse
from "As You Like It," spoken by Jacques
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
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;
And 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