“All the world’s a stage” compares a human life to a play in seven acts, from a crying baby to a toothless old man, and it is spoken by a gloomy courtier whose bleak picture of old age the play answers only moments later.
All the World’s a Stage: The Full Speech
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;
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.
Text based on the First Folio (1623), As You Like It, Act 2, scene 7, with modernized spelling and punctuation.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about “All the world’s a stage” for quick reference.
What “All the World’s a Stage” Means
The whole speech in plain English, before the line-by-line detail.
The world, Jaques says, is a theater, and every man and woman is only an actor in it. People make their entrances when they are born and their exits when they die, and in between, each person plays many roles. A man’s life is a play in seven acts.
First comes the baby, crying and throwing up in his nurse’s arms. Then the schoolboy, complaining, with his bag and freshly washed face, dragging himself to school as slowly as a snail. Then the young lover, sighing like a furnace and writing sad love songs about his girlfriend’s eyebrow.
Next the soldier, full of exotic swear words, bearded like a leopard, touchy about his honor, quick to fight, and ready to chase a reputation as fragile as a bubble even into the mouth of a cannon. Then the judge, with a round belly well stuffed with good food, stern eyes, a neatly trimmed beard, and a head full of wise sayings and ordinary examples. That is his role.
The sixth age is the thin old man in slippers, with spectacles on his nose and a purse at his side. The stockings he saved from his youth are far too wide for his shrunken legs, and his once deep voice has turned back into a child’s, piping and whistling. The last scene of all, which ends this strange, eventful story, is a second childhood and complete forgetfulness, without teeth, without eyes, without taste, without anything.
All the World’s a Stage, Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Where the Speech Comes in As You Like It
The moment just before and just after the speech changes how it sounds.
As You Like It is a comedy set mostly in the Forest of Arden, where the good Duke Senior lives in exile with a band of loyal lords, after his brother seized his dukedom. Among the Duke’s companions is Jaques, a lord known for his melancholy, who enjoys finding the sad side of everything. Earlier in this scene, he has been delighted to meet a professional fool in the forest.
The Duke and his men are sitting down to eat when a young man, Orlando, bursts in with his sword drawn, demanding food. He is starving, and so is the old servant who has followed him, who is too weak to go on. The Duke welcomes him kindly, and Orlando goes to fetch the old man. Watching him go, the Duke reflects that they are not the only unhappy ones: “This wide and universal theater / Presents more woeful pageants than the scene / Wherein we play in.” Jaques takes up the image at once: “All the world’s a stage.”
The speech ends on the bleakest image of old age, “sans everything,” and at that very moment Orlando returns, carrying the old man in his arms. For more of Shakespeare’s comedies, see our guide to all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Themes
The three big ideas the speech turns on.
Life as Theater
The comparison of the world to a stage was an old one, but Shakespeare, a man of the theater, returns to it again and again. In Jaques’s version, the idea is gently mocking: people play parts they did not write, entering and exiting on a schedule, each role a little ridiculous. Compare Macbeth’s far darker version, in which life is “a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”
The Stages of Life
Dividing a life into ages was a familiar scheme in Shakespeare’s time, found in books and pictures. Jaques gives each age a single sharp caricature: the puking baby, the snail-paced schoolboy, the sighing lover, the hot-headed soldier, the well-fed judge, the shrunken old man. Each is recognizable, and each is slightly absurd.
Melancholy
The speech is Jaques’s, not Shakespeare’s final word. Jaques is the play’s professional pessimist, and his view of life ends where he always ends: in decay and nothing. The comedy around him is warmer, full of love, loyalty, and second chances, and it keeps quietly disagreeing with him.
Form and Language
How the speech is built, and why it sounds the way it does.
An Extended Metaphor
The whole speech develops one comparison. The world is the stage, people are the players, birth and death are entrances and exits, and a life is a play in acts. Even the final age is called the “Last scene of all,” and a life is a “strange eventful history,” the word used for a history play.
A Portrait in Seven Sketches
Each age gets only a line or two, built from one or two telling details: a satchel and a shining face, a ballad to an eyebrow, a beard “of formal cut.” The effect is like a series of quick cartoons, each capturing a whole type of person in a single stroke.
The Shrinking Final Line
The last line strips life away word by word: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” The repeated “sans” takes away one faculty at a time, and the list ends not with another body part but with “everything.” The line performs the loss it describes.
Borrowed Types from the Stage
The “pantaloon” was the stock foolish old man of Italian comedy, a character Shakespeare’s audience would have recognized. By naming him, Jaques turns real old age into a comic stage role, which fits his theatrical metaphor exactly.
A Closer Reading: The Old Man Who Walks In Next
Jaques ends his speech with old age as “mere oblivion, / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” and in the very next moment Shakespeare brings an old man on stage who proves him wrong.
That old man is Adam, Orlando’s faithful servant, who has followed his young master into exile. Orlando would not eat until Adam was fed, describing him as “Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.” Now he enters carrying Adam in his arms, and the Duke’s first words are a welcome: “Set down your venerable burden, / And let him feed.”
Everything Jaques said about the seventh age is visible in Adam: he is weak, helpless, and has to be carried like a child. But Jaques left out everything that makes the moment matter. Adam is not oblivion; he is loyalty, remembered and repaid. He is not “sans everything”; he has a young man who loves him enough to carry him and a Duke who calls him “venerable.” Jaques describes the ages of a man alone. The play shows a man surrounded by others, and in doing so it answers the most famous speech in the play without a single word of argument, simply by what it puts on the stage.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about “All the world’s a stage,” answered briefly.
What Does “All the World’s a Stage” Mean?
That life is like a play. Everyone is an actor who enters at birth, exits at death, and plays a series of roles in between, which Jaques divides into seven ages.
What Are the Seven Ages of Man?
The infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the old man or “pantaloon,” and finally second childhood, the stage of complete helplessness before death.
Who Says “All the World’s a Stage”?
Jaques, a melancholy lord who lives with the banished Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden, in Act 2, scene 7 of As You Like It.
What Does “Sans Everything” Mean?
“Without anything.” “Sans” is the French word for “without.” In extreme old age, Jaques says, a person has lost teeth, sight, taste, and finally everything.
Is the Speech Connected to the Globe Theatre?
Possibly. The play was written around the time the Globe opened in 1599, and some scholars think the speech plays on a Latin motto associated with the theater, meaning roughly that the whole world acts a part. The connection is plausible but not certain.
Related Reading
Three pages that take “All the world’s a stage” further.