Talk:All the world's a wiki

About the original

The original soliloquy is from William Shakespeare's play As You Like It, spoken by the character Jaques in Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166. The full text is below:

"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 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."

Punctuation, etc. in the parody

The original punctuation of the First Folio edition of As You Like It has been kept; it is not grammatically correct in many places according to today's standards, but is more in keeping with the original and the overall feel and atmosphere of the soliloquy. Please discuss changes to original punctuation before making them! -- Editor at Large • talk 14:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)