ALL THE WORLD´S STAGE

This is an extract from a Shakespeare play, "As you like it", written nearly four hundred years ago. It is a famous speech, known as "The seven ages of man", by a character called Jaques.
It is one of Shakespeare´s most famous monologues. He analyzes the great drama of life in a world which is "a wide and universal theatre". The basic idea is that every life is a theatrical performance. Man is just playing a role. Shakespeare divides the life of a man into seven ages or acts, and describes each with a character: infant, school-boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon and second childhood.


Act II, Scene 7," AS YOU LIKE IT" by William Shakespeare.

All the world´s 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 pucking in the nurse´s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with this satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful 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 puoch on side,
His youthful hose well sav´d a world too wide
For his shunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends his strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion
sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C68ksx6QYEo


Glossary

mewling and pucking: crying and being sick
whining: making a complaining noise
woful: sad
oaths: swear, rude words
belly: stomach
capon: male chicken fattened for eating
saws: proverbs or sayings
slipper´d: with slippers on
pantaloon: (archaic) in commedia dell´arte, a foolish old Venetian merchant
hose: kind of trousers
oblivion: forgetfulness
sans: without (French word)

SAINT BRENDAN, THE VOYAGER.

Saint Brendan, the voyager, was born in the south west of Ireland in 484. There is little information about his life but he had a very strong influence on the Celtic Church. He founded a number of abbies and monasteries, including the one at Clonfert in Galway (Ireland) where he died in 578.

Saint Brendan is known for his legendary quest to the "Isle of the Blessed". The saint was a wanderer. He left his home as a sign of his spiritual quest. He decided to sail from the Hebrides off the edge of the known world into the west. Although there is no historical proof of his voyage, Brendan is said to have sailed in search of a Paradise with a company of sixty monks. After a long voyage ( 7 years), they reached the Paradise, an island covered with vegetation.

Many medieval manuscripts of the "Voyage of Saint Brendan" still exist and there are versions in Middle English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and other languages. This story was popular in the Middle Ages.

Maps of Columbus´s time often included an island called St Brendan´s Island that was placed in the Western Atlantic Ocean. Map markers of the time had no idea of its exact position but they believed it existed somewhere west of Europe. It was mentioned in a Latin text (Navigatio Santi

Brendan Abatis), dating from the 9th century. It described the voyage as having taken place in the 6th century. Several copies of the text have survived in monasteries throughout Europe. Since the 13th century the legend has appeared in the literatures of the Netherlands, Germany and England.

The narrative in "Navigatio Brendan" offers a wide range for the interpretation of the geographical position of the Paradise´Island: far west of the southern part of Ireland, the Fortunate Isles in the south,....

Soon a new theory arose, maintained for those scholars who claimed for the Irish monk the glory of discovering America because he could only have the knowledge of foreign animals and plants described in the legend by visiting the western continent. Did Saint Brendan travel to America before Columbus? He possibly reached America in the 6th century!!!

Now Saint Brendan is known as the Patron Saint of sailors and travellers. His feast is kept on the 16 May, the day of his death. It is celebrated by Catholics, Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Christians.