I didn’t give Shakespeare’s famous Seven Ages of Man much thought until I turned 60 and then I started to wonder where I belonged. It’s tricky for a woman anyway because it really is all about men, which shows that when people insist that the term “man” refers to people in general they aren’t telling the truth. The seven ages of man – infancy, schoolboy, teenager, young man, middle age, old age, dotage and death – feature in the much-quoted “All the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It, and although women do get a shout-out in the line “men and women merely players”, their only appearance after that is when a lovesick teenager dedicates a ballad to their eyebrow. Talk about a bit part.
Still, I do recognise myself in the sixth age “with spectacles on nose”, but it’s hard to relate to my big manly voice “turning again towards childish treble”. Although I don’t think I have entered my dotage yet, I do identify with the childishness part of the seventh age, which possibly places me somewhere between the two – perhaps I’m in the 6½th Age. I know I’m supposed to have put aside all childish things by now, but I seem to be enjoying them more and more. For a start, I have joined a choir for the first time since I was at school. There is something truly joyful about being in a roomful of people all lifting up their voices in song. Most people would think that was enough, but then I started thinking how much I’d enjoy playing some of the music we sing on a recorder. Whether those around me would enjoy it too is debatable.
I loved playing the recorder when I was a child and terrorised my family with endless rounds of “London’s Burning”. I did buy a new one when my children were little, but it didn’t get much use except to play “name that tune” with them, which was rather fun. That recorder vanished the way of my first one, but I have now bought yet another and it turns out that I can play some of the music that my choir sings and it is rather fun. I would feel a bit guilty about our neighbours, but we have been listening to a lot of flute practice through the wall over the past year, so my conscience is clear.
I also miss making art. Nothing as refined as pencil sketches or delicate watercolours, but messy art with glue and paper and poster paints. There’s a community art centre just round the corner from us that offers courses with wonderful sounding names like Gel Plate Fun and Play With Clay. I think I’ll sign up for one and then insist that my work be displayed prominently about the house. I don’t know about the Ages of Man, but I think I’m going to enjoy the 6½th Age of Woman.
Here’s the full speech:
“All the wold’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.”
William Shakespeare, from As You Like It
It’s the last line that worries me!
Best not think about it!