[JACQUES]

All the worlds 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 nurses 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 cannons 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.

The world is like the stage of a theatre, and life is like a big drama, in which different men and
women enter (through birth), play their individual parts, and exit (death).

In addition to the different roles of the players, each individual also has several parts to play in
his lifetime. To convey this idea, Shakespeare has taken a broad view of a mans life, and divided
it into seven parts.Mewling is the small weak noise that a cat makes.

The first stage of life is that of a little baby who succeeds in getting everyones attention by
alternately crying and vomiting in the arms of his caretaker.

In Jacques' view, even the start of life is filled with dissatisfaction

Havent you ever wanted to know why his face was shining? Maybe he was crying and begging
his mother not to send him to school, but she forced him to go anyway. Or maybe hes been
forced to bathe and wash his face. Either way, hes dawdling because he hates school.Youth
follows childhood, and love is one of the dominant emotions during that period of a persons
life.In a furnace the flames shift and flare unpredictably. This is likened to the heavy breathing of
a lover overwhelmed with emotion.Ah the love-struck youth in his euphoria/delusion, he
convinces himself he is Wordsworth reborn, and sings some woeful, god-awful ballad that exalts
his mistress' every body part, be it a breast or a mere eyebrow.

See Shakespeares sonnet 130, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, where he further
satirizes conventional love poetry.

This line could have also be interpreted in a less cynical way perhaps woeful is genuinely used
to mean sad.
In that case, this is a picture of a lover singing a tragic ballad to emphasize the emptiness he feels
in the absence of his lover. And the mistress skeptically observes his song, evaluating whether or
not his emotions are genuine (Hence the eyebrow, used as a signaling mechanism).

Note that this stage is not exclusive to military. The soldier is only metaphor. This is the period
of life when you start taking your job very seriously and you dedicate yourself to a cause,
whether it be the protection of the nation, or simply the upkeep of your family.