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Shakespeare plays JAQUES on stage


A view of the stage, with a sign telling us that we are in the forest of Arden; there are trees and bushes at the back.  Shakespeare is centre-stage, performing as Jaques dressed as an Elizabethan woodsman.  He looks thoughtful as he speaks, while two other exiled noblemen dressed in forest-green stand beside him with gloomy expressions on their faces

JAQUES 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 school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
made to his mistress's eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
full of strange oaths, and ...

As You Like It, Act 3 Scene 2