‘All The World’s a Stage’
‘One man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven stages’
I was somewhat reluctant to mark ‘mothers day’. Don’t get me wrong, it's lovely to mark a day dedicated to how incredible mums are, they are truly amazing people. I mean they took the time to grown you and the strength to pop you out. I hear its pretty painful. One of the most painful experiences a human being will go through. Second only to being burned alive apparently. Don’t believe me. Google it! The thing is, there are many people out there in this world, like myself, who don’t have a mother anymore. Some grew up without one. Some are mothers, but have lost the children who loved to call them ‘mum’. And, for us mothers day is a painful day. Therefore we ask you to please respect our space.
It was then with trepidation that I chose a text for this week, I was planning on ignoring it altogether, but that would be crude of me to do so. This weeks text is ‘All The Worlds a Stage’ from the play ‘As You Like It’ by Shakespeare. It is told by a melancholy Jaques one day in the forest of Arden - a soliloquy of meandering thought, trying to understand the world around us and what this little life we have means? I chose this text, not because it has anything to do with mothers universally, but because this was what I read at my mothers funeral. I thought that this speech perfectly demonstrated her strength and that the life she lived was a full one- even if it was cut far too short.
Let’s begin with that all famous opening line ‘All the worlds a stage, And the men and women merely players’ essentially life is one grand performance , the stage is set and we all have a part to play in the grand scheme of things. ‘One man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages’ We have roles to play, we are not continuous in who we are all of our lives, and Shakespeare marks it down to only seven. I’m sure there are more but we’ll be here all day. At first you have child-like state, completely dependant on those around you to survive. Shakespeare then speaks to the joys of youth ‘And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school’ I love this bit because its nostalgic, as much as we would all love to be children again, school was not the best. Before becoming a grownup happened, our biggest problem was having to go to school. And I find Shakespeare’s detailing of it utterly charming. He even talks about the ups and downs of falling in and out of love ‘Sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow’ I mean, we’ve all been there. If you haven’t made a complete fool of yourself in front of someone you like/love, Leave. (I’m kidding) But you really haven’t lived.
The next step is one that I see as the one that matures us, it talks about war ‘seeking the bubble of reputation even in the cannons mouth’ I see this as the point where we grow and learn. To me its a metaphor for life upending itself, because in a way that’s what war does. It turns everything we thought we knew on its head and turns it to dust. This is extrapolated by the next stage ‘And then the Justice… Full of wise saws and modern instances’ it shows that the older we get the more perspective we have on life and the wiser we are. I’m guessing it's called hindsight ‘with eyes severe and beard of formal cut’. And then we have the penultimate age when our age creeps up on us ‘into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side’. We return to our childish roots as our bodies slowly but surely give up on us, we are no longer young. And lastly ‘That ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything’. ‘Eventful history’ is our short little lives, as we dissipate into nothingness, physically speaking, we do live on in a strange way: in memory. But our second life lived in memory only lasts as long as those alive do remember us, and even they don’t last forever.
I was wondering how to end this review of ‘All the World’s a Stage’, I chose this because it looks a life that had been lived for a good long time, although my mothers life was cut short. It had, however, been lived to the fullest.
Therefore, I wish you all a very Happy Mother’s Day.