The seven ages of man
 TASK I
What are the different periods of a man’s life?
According to Shakespeare, there are seven.
Click on the following link http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca//Library/SLT/media/Sounds/ages.mp3 and listen
to the monologue (or soliloquy) spoken by the melancholy Jacques in Act II Scene VII of the comedy As you
like it. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and lists the 7 stages of a man's life, referred
to as the seven ages of man. It is one of Shakespeare's most frequently-quoted passages. The passage, read by an
Elizabethan actor, is spoken in the dialect Shakespeare would have used; listen to it and
1. order the following words in the chronological order: 1. Childishness 2. Mistress 3. Nurse 4. Players 5.
Quarrel 6. Satchel 7. Severe 8. Spectacle
As you may have noticed, there are 8 words and only 7 ages; one of the words is not associated with an age, but
is used in the introduction.
2. Associate them with one of the seven ages, as described by Shakespeare:
Word
1. Childishness
2. Mistress
3. Nurse
4. Players
5. Quarrel
6. Satchel
7. Severe
8. Spectacle

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Age (how does Jacques call each age?)
TASK 2
Go to http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/SLTnoframes/life/lifesubj+1.html.
Copy the text of the soliloquy (you'll have to split it into different parts) and paste it into the box of the site
http://www.reverso.net/text_translation.aspx?lang=FR; click on the English-French translation button (this
will translate the text automatically).
Copy and paste this translation into an OpenOffice document.
Then, using an online dictionary (see the links on DJEnglishSite) and
http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/SLTnoframes/life/lifesubj+1.html (click on the words followed by an
asterisk) correct the errors (there must be a lot) and refine the translation.
Finally, print your improved translation of the soliloquy.