# Jaques: All the world’s a stage > What is happening, what every line means, how to perform it, and how to use it in an audition, with the full text. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/monologues/all-the-worlds-a-stage - Last updated: 2026-10-08 From [As You Like It](https://www.offbook.com/plays/as-you-like-it) by William Shakespeare, Act 2, Scene 7. ## What is happening This is Act 2, Scene 7 of As You Like It. Duke Senior has been driven from his court by his younger brother, Duke Frederick, and lives in exile in the Forest of Arden with a few loyal lords. Jaques is one of them: a lord who prefers watching and mocking to taking part. He has just come back delighted by a fool he met in the forest, and he has asked the Duke for a fool's freedom to speak his mind about the world. Their meal is interrupted when Orlando bursts in with his sword drawn and demands food. The Duke answers him kindly, and Orlando goes to fetch Adam, the old servant who ran away with him and is close to collapse from hunger. While they wait, the Duke remarks that they are not the only unhappy people: this wide theatre of the world shows sadder scenes than theirs. Jaques picks up that idea and runs with it, finishing the Duke's line and turning one passing thought into a full tour of a man's life. The speech ends just as Orlando comes back carrying Adam. - Lines: 28 - Words: 212 - At 150 words a minute: 1.4 minutes - Form: Verse ## The speech, beat by beat The full text in 6 beats. Under each beat: what it means in plain English, and a note for playing it. ### Lines 1–4: Life is a play 1. All the world’s a stage, 2. And all the men and women merely players: 3. They have their exits and their entrances; 4. And one man in his time plays many parts, **In plain English:** The whole world is a stage, and every man and woman is just an actor. They all have their exits and their entrances, and one man plays many parts in his lifetime. **Acting note:** You are answering the Duke, not starting a lecture. Pick up his idea of the world as a theatre as if it has just sparked something in you. ### Lines 5–9: The infant and the schoolboy 5. His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 6. Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. 7. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 8. And shining morning face, creeping like snail 9. Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, **In plain English:** His life is a play in seven acts. First comes the baby, crying and being sick in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy with his bag and his freshly washed face, crawling to school like a snail because he does not want to go. **Acting note:** Each age is a new picture. Let the audience see the baby and the boy before you move on. ### Lines 10–15: The lover and the soldier 10. Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 11. Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, 12. Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, 13. Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 14. Seeking the bubble reputation 15. Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, **In plain English:** Then the lover, sighing like a furnace, writing a sad love song about his lady's eyebrow. Then the soldier, full of strange oaths, with a bristling beard like a leopard's, touchy about his honor and quick to fight, chasing a fame that bursts like a bubble, even at the mouth of a cannon. **Acting note:** The eyebrow is the joke: the lover cannot even get as far as her eyes. Line 14 is short, so 'reputation' hangs in the air before 'the cannon's mouth' arrives. ### Lines 16–19: The justice 16. In fair round belly with good capon lined, 17. With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 18. Full of wise saws and modern instances; 19. And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts **In plain English:** Then the judge, with a fine round belly lined with good chicken, a stern look, and a neatly trimmed beard, full of wise sayings and everyday examples. And so he plays his part. **Acting note:** This is the man at the top of his life, comfortable and pleased with himself. 'And so he plays his part' closes the funny half of the speech. ### Lines 20–25: The old man 20. Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, 21. With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 22. His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 23. For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 24. Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 25. And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, **In plain English:** The sixth age turns him into a thin old fool in slippers, with glasses on his nose and a purse at his side. The stockings he kept from his youth are far too wide now for his shrunken legs, and his big manly voice goes back to a child's high voice, piping and whistling. **Acting note:** The comedy thins out here. The picture is still funny, but the body is failing, and the audience should feel the speech start to turn. ### Lines 26–28: The last scene 26. That ends this strange eventful history, 27. Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 28. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. **In plain English:** The last scene of all, which ends this strange and eventful story, is a second childhood and complete forgetting: no teeth, no eyes, no taste, nothing. **Acting note:** The four 'sans' are a countdown. Give each one its own weight, and let the last word, 'everything', land as the bleakest thing in the speech. ## Hard words | Word | Line | Meaning | | --- | --- | --- | | *merely* | 2 | only, simply | | *Mewling* | 6 | crying weakly | | *puking* | 6 | being sick, spitting up | | *Sighing like furnace* | 10 | sighing hot and hard, the way a furnace blows out air | | *pard* | 12 | leopard; a bristling beard like a leopard's whiskers | | *Jealous in honour* | 13 | quick to take offense on behalf of his honor | | *bubble reputation* | 14 | fame that bursts as easily as a bubble | | *capon* | 16 | a castrated cockerel fattened for the table | | *wise saws* | 18 | wise sayings, proverbs | | *modern instances* | 18 | ordinary, everyday examples | | *pantaloon* | 20 | the foolish old man of Italian comedy (commedia dell'arte) | | *hose* | 22 | close-fitting breeches or stockings | | *shank* | 23 | lower leg | | *treble* | 24 | a high voice, like a child's | | *Sans* | 28 | without (French) | ## How to perform it - Know why you are speaking. This is not a soliloquy: the Duke and his lords are listening, and Jaques takes up the Duke's half-finished thought. Decide what he wants from them. He might be showing off, entertaining the company while they wait, or topping the Duke's gentle remark with a much darker one. - Pick up the cue. Jaques finishes the Duke's line, so 'All the world's a stage' should come in quickly, as an answer, not after a long pause to set up a famous speech. - See every figure. Each age is a small portrait: the crying baby, the boy dragging himself to school, the lover, the soldier, the fat judge, the old man. If you picture each one clearly, the audience will too, and the changes of picture give the speech its shape. - Fight the familiar tune. The first line is known almost everywhere, and it is easy to slip into the rhythm everyone has heard. Say it as if the idea is new to you, and let the verbs (mewling, creeping, sighing, seeking, shifts) do the work. - Play the turn. The first five ages are a series of jokes at the expense of mankind. From the sixth age the jokes thin out, and the last three lines are bleak. Let the mood change gradually so that 'sans everything' lands as the end of the joke and the end of a life. ## Using it in an audition This is the most famous speech in As You Like It, which cuts both ways for an audition: a panel will know every word, and StageMilk notes that it is not a particularly common audition choice because it is so reflective. If you use it, a clear reason for saying it matters more than a beautiful voice. The full speech runs about 1.4 minutes at 150 words a minute, so it fits a 90-second limit without cutting. No sentence ends at the end of a line near the one-minute mark, so this page shows no 60-second cut; for a shorter version, stop after 'And so he plays his part.' in line 19, about 141 words, just under a minute, but that loses the turn into old age. Jaques's age is not fixed by the play, so the speech suits a wide range of actors. As a wry, thoughtful verse piece from a comedy, it pairs well with a more emotional dramatic monologue to show range. Jaques, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7. William Shakespeare. Public domain text. ## How long it runs | Pace | Words a minute | Run time | | --- | --- | --- | | Deliberate | 130 | 1.6 minutes | | Conversational | 150 | 1.4 minutes | | Brisk | 170 | 1.2 minutes | These are speech times before pauses. To time your own run, paste the text into the [monologue timer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/monologue-timer). ## Practice it: first-letter version Each word is cut to its first letter. Say the whole line from the letters, then check the text. Make cues from any script with the [first-letter memorizer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer). ```text A t w a s, A a t m a w m p: T h t e a t e; A o m i h t p m p, H a b s a. A f t i, M a p i t n a. A t t w s-b, w h s A s m f, c l s U t s. A t t l, S l f, w a w b M t h m’ e. T a s, F o s o a b l t p, J i h, s a q i q, S t b r E i t c m. A t t j, I f r b w g c l, W e s a b o f c, F o w s a m i; A s h p h p. T s a s I t l a s p, W s o n a p o s, H y h, w s, a w t w F h s s; a h b m v, T a t c t, p A w i h s. L s o a, T e t s e h, I s c a m o, S t, s e, s t, s e. ``` ## More from As You Like It - [How many lines does Jaques have?](https://www.offbook.com/plays/as-you-like-it/jaques) - [Every role in As You Like It, by size](https://www.offbook.com/plays/as-you-like-it) More lists: [Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/shakespeare), [Monologues for men](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/for-men), [Comedic monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/comedic). ## Sources - [Jaques Monologue | As You Like It (Act 2 Scene 7) (StageMilk)](https://www.stagemilk.com/jacques-monologue-like-act-2-scene-7/) - [Language analysis in As You Like It | Shakespeare Learning Zone (Royal Shakespeare Company)](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/as-you-like-it/language/analysis) - [All the world's a stage (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_world%27s_a_stage) - ['All The World's A Stage': Quote & Meaning (No Sweat Shakespeare)](https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/all-the-worlds-a-stage/) - [As You Like It, by William Shakespeare (Standard Ebooks)](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare/as-you-like-it) ## Questions actors ask ### How long is Jaques’s All the world’s a stage speech? 28 lines and 212 words. At 150 words a minute it runs about 1.4 minutes; a slower, more deliberate delivery at 130 takes about 1.6 minutes. Pauses add time, so time a full run out loud. ### Is it a good audition monologue? This is the most famous speech in As You Like It, which cuts both ways for an audition: a panel will know every word, and StageMilk notes that it is not a particularly common audition choice because it is so reflective. If you use it, a clear reason for saying it matters more than a beautiful voice. The full speech runs about 1.4 minutes at 150 words a minute, so it fits a 90-second limit without cutting. No sentence ends at the end of a line near the one-minute mark, so this page shows no 60-second cut; for a shorter version, stop after 'And so he plays his part.' in line 19, about 141 words, just under a minute, but that loses the turn into old age. Jaques's age is not fixed by the play, so the speech suits a wide range of actors. As a wry, thoughtful verse piece from a comedy, it pairs well with a more emotional dramatic monologue to show range. ### What is the fastest way to memorize it? Learn it in sense units, not line by line: say each thought out loud until you can do it without looking, then add the next. The first-letter version below keeps the shape of every line in view while you test yourself. ## How we count Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare/as-you-like-it) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).