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Not ‘As You Like It’ Jaques

Act 2 Scene 7

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,
Stamping and screaming on the nursery floor.
Then the whining schoolboy,
With his plastic gun and sullen, defiant face, The sixth age shifts
Stomping in his gear Into the mean, dangerous,
Unwillingly to school. Vote catching loon,
With hand on heart and
And then the ‘bover’, two fingers poised –
Fuming and cursing with a doleful ballad Pity the child, condone the vile,
Yobbism rules. OK? ne’er deride
The ignorant clod –
Then a ‘member’, Blame unemployment and
Full of strange oaths and girded like a Hun, Poor dole, poor future, poor home, but ne’er
Empty of honour, sudden and vicious in quarrel, Blame the clod having no soul.
Seeking the Yobb reputation
Behind the petrol bomb. Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history
And then the ‘justice’ encouraging racist, Is second childhood,
Marxist, Rightist and all, Locked in a room behind bolts and bars –
With eyes ablaze and hair of unisex cut, To dare outside is mere oblivion;
Full of wise saws and moral instances;
And so he plays his part. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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