Seven Ages of Man

There’s an art to aging gracefully in good physical and mental health. My column last week on Sage’ing while Age’ing explored the slow unfolding of life from matter to spirit. Shakespeare paints a more eloquent picture of this arc.

In As You Like It, the melancholy Jaques delivers the famous “Seven Ages of Man” speech, casting life as theater: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

The first age is infancy: helpless, crying, utterly dependent. The second is schoolboy: dragged reluctantly to class, “creeping like a snail,” resisting duty. Then comes the lover—sighing like a furnace, consumed by passion and clumsy verse.

The fourth age is soldier: brash, ambitious, “bearded like the pard,” quick to quarrel and risk life for the “bubble reputation.” Next is justice: mature, well-fed, full of maxims and judgments shaped by experience. He embodies authority and responsibility.

The sixth age brings decline. Once commanding, he becomes the “lean and slippered pantaloon,” his strong voice fading to a childish treble, dignity giving way to frailty. Finally comes the seventh age: “second childishness and mere oblivion.” Without teeth, without sight, without everything, man exits the stage.

In fewer than thirty lines, Shakespeare captures the human journey—dependence, growth, passion, ambition, maturity, decline, and death. With vivid imagery—the whining schoolboy dragging his feet, the boastful soldier chasing honor, the fading elder in spectacles and slippers—the speech satirizes vanity yet acknowledges mortality with solemn clarity.

At its best, the City Club community learns together, across these stages. The script is written by nature, the ending uncertain. Yet in its universality lies the truth: whatever roles we play, the play ends the same. Life is comic and tragic, fleeting and eternal.

— Sina.