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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,
Stomping in his gear
Unwillingly to school.

And then the ‘bover’,
Fuming and cursing with a doleful ballad
Yobbism rules. OK?
Then a ‘member’,
Full of strange oaths and girded like a Hun,
Empty of honour, sudden and vicious in quarrel,
Seeking the Yobb reputation
Behind the petrol bomb.
And then the ‘justice’ encouraging racist,
Marxist, Rightist and all,
With eyes ablaze and hair of unisex cut,
Full of wise saws and moral instances;
And so he plays his part.

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