And I lov’d her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.
THE SEVEN AGES
[This is a succession of purely imaginative ideas which the voice should touch lightly. In this speech one meets always the question of impersonation: shall the mewling infant, the whining schoolboy, the sighing lover and the rest be imitated by the reader? It is in better taste not to impersonate these seven characters beyond certain almost imperceptible hints which the gayety of Jaques’s mind might naturally throw off.]
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: