There are teachers we all grow fond of in the course of our schooling. I had one such teacher, Mr. Yarbrough; a speech and debate sponsor and all-around-cool teacher. Not only was my teacher in middle school, but he ended up being a teacher at my high school. He was an interesting character, to say the least. But his behavior and teaching style isn’t why I remember him most. I remember Mr. Yarbrough for a monologue he made my class memorize. We had the full course of the class to learn it. Our final exam was to say the monologue in front of the whole class with no pauses, “um’s” or second guesses.
The monologue was from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
“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 school-boy, 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 honour, 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 lin’d,
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 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.”
We’ve heard life is game and you have to know the rules to play. I think Shakespeare had it more well-defined as a play; and the world is our stage. We’re all merely players on stage, making our entrances and exits. We go through our stages of life, playing the roles assigned to us.
I’ve played the whining school-boy, the lover and now in the soldier phase. I’ve been a soldier literally and figuratively, based on his monologue.
What part are you playing right now? Do you think the world is a stage and you’re a player?
Did you rememberize that whole thing?
I memorized it then – haha. Thank you Wikipedia.