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Los Siete Papeles Teatrales del Hombre

 

Duque: Ya ves que no somos los únicos desdichados.

Este teatro amplio y universal

Presenta espectáculos más dolorosos que el de la escena

En la que actuamos nosotros.

 

Jaques:                                    Todo el mundo es un escenario,

Y los hombres y mujeres meramente actores.

Tienen sus salidas de escena y sus entradas,

Y un hombre en su tiempo representa muchos papeles,

Siendo sus actos siete edades. Primero el infante,

Maullando y vomitando en brazos de la nodriza.

Luego el colegial quejoso, con su mochila

Y cara limpia mañanera, arrastrándose como un caracol

De mala gana hacia la escuela. Y luego el amante,

Suspirando como un horno, con una doliente balada

Dedicada a la ceja de su amada. Luego un soldado,

Lleno de juramentos extraños, con patillas de leopardo,

Celoso de su honor, brusco, y rápido en buscar pelea,

Buscando la burbuja de la reputación

Hasta la boca misma del cañón. Y luego el juez,

Con buena tripa redonda forrada de capón,

Severos ojos y barba de corte formal,

Lleno de dichos sabios y de casos modernos;

Y así representa su papel. La sexta edad cambia

A Pantalón, viejo flaco en zapatillas,

Gafas en la nariz y bolsa al costado,

Con sus calzas de cuando era joven, bien ahorradas, anchas como un mundo

Para sus piernillas encogidas, y su voz fuerte y viril

Volviéndose otra vez en voz aguda de niño, como flauta

Da pitidos al sonar. La última escena de todas,

Que termina esta extraña historia llena de eventos,

Es la segunda niñez y el mero olvido,

Sine dientes, sine ojos, sine gusto, sine nada de todo.

(Shakespeare, Como gustéis, II.7)

El mundo como teatro 

 

The Great Theatre of Nature

Although each of the SEASONS appears to have been intended as a complete piece, and contains within itself the natural order of beginning, middle, and termination, yet, as they were at length collected and modelled by their author, they have all a mutual relation to each other, and concur in forming a more comprehensive whole. The annual space in which the earth performs its revolution round the sun is so strongly marked by nature for a perfect period, that all mankind have agreed in forming their computations of time upon it. In all the temperate climes of the globe, the four seasons are so many progressive stages in this circuit, which, like the acts in a well-constructed drama, gradually disclose, ripen, and bring to an end the various business transacted on the great theatre of Nature. The striking analogy which this period with its several division bears to the course of human existence, has been remarked and pursued by writers of all ages and countries. Spring has been  represented as the youth of the year—the season of pleasing hope, lively energy, and rapid increase. Summer has been resembled to pefect manhood—the season of steady warmth, confirmed strength, and unremitting vigour. Autumn, which , while it bestows the rich products of full maturity, is yet ever hastening to decline, has been aptly compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and wisdom, but daily exhibits increasing symptoms of decay. The cold, cheerless, and sluggish Winter has almost without a metaphor been termed the decrepid and hoary old age of the year. Thus the history of the year, pursued through its changing seasons, is that of an individual, whose existence is marked by a progressive course from its origin to its termination. It is thus represented by our Poet; this idea preserves an unity and connection through his whole work, and the accurate observer will remark a beautiful chain of circumstances in his description, by which the birth, vigour, decline, and extinction of the vital principle of the year are pictured in the most lively manner.

This order and gradation of the whole runs, as has been already hinted, through each division of the poem. Every season has its incipient, confirmed, and receding state, of which its historian ought to give distinct views, arranged according to the succession in which they appear. Each, too, like the prismatic colours, is indistinguishably blended in its origin and termination with that which precedes, and which follows it; and it may be expected from the pencil of an artist to hit off these mingled shades so as to produce a pleasing and picturesque effect. Our poet has not been inattentive to these circumstances in the conduct of his plan. His SPRING begins with a view of the season as yet unconfirmed, and partaking of the roughness of Winter*; and it is not till after several steps in gradual progression, that it breaks forth in all its ornaments, as the favourite of Love and Pleasure. His AUTUMN, after a rich prospect of its bounties and splendours, gently fades into "the sere, the yellow leaf," and the rising storm, sinks into the arms of Winter. It is remarkable, that in order to produce something of a similar effect in his SUMMER, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any stronly-marked gradations, he has comprised the whole of his description within the limits of a single day, pursuing the course of the sun from its rising to its setting. A Summer's day is, in reality, a just model of the entire season. Its beginning is moist and temperate; its middle, sultry and parching; its close, soft and refreshing. By thus exhibiting all the vicissitudes of Summer under one point of view, they are rendered much more striking than could have been done in a series of feebly contrasted and scarcely distinguishable periods.

* A descriptive piece, in which this very interval of time is represented, with all the accuracy of a naturalist, and vivid colouring of a poet, has lately appeared in a poem of Mr. Warton's, entitled "The First of April."

 

 

J. Aikin, M.D. From: The Seasons, by James Thomson.  A New Edition. Adorned with a set of engravings from original designs. To which is prefixed, An Essay on the Plan and Character of the Poem, by J. Aikin, M.D. London: Printed for J. Murray, No. 32, Fleet Street. MDCCXDIV. p. xii-xv.

The Dramatis Personae of Active Life

From Mary Shelley's The Last Man (Penguin, p. 227-28):

We had lived so long in the vicinity of Eton, that its population of young folks was well known to us. Many of them had been Alfred's playmates, before they became his school-fellows. We now watched this youthful congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the difference of character among the boys, and endeavoured to read the future man in the stripling. There is nothing more lovely, to which the heart more yearns than a free-spirited boy, gentle, brave, and generous. Several of the Etonians had these characteristics; all were distinguished by a sense of honour, and spirit of enterprize; in some, as they verged towards manhood, this degenerated into presumption; but the younger ones, lads a little older than our own, were conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions.

Here were the future governors of England; the men, who, when our ardour was cold, and our projects completed or destroyed for ever, when, our drama acted, we doffed the garb of the hour, and assumed the uniform of age, or of more equalizing death; here were the beings who were to carry on the vast machine of society; here were the lovers, husbands, fathers; here the landlord, the politician, the soldier; some fancied that they were even now ready to appear on the stage, eager to make one among the dramatis personae of active life. It was not long since I was like one of these beardless aspirants; when my boy shall have obtained tha place I now hold, I shall have tottered into a grey-headed, wrinkled old man. Strange system! riddle of the Sphynx, most awe-striking! that thus man remains, while we the individuals pass away. Such is, to borrow the words of an eloquent and philosophical writer, 'the mode of existence decreed to a pemanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression" (Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution).

Willingly do I give place to thee, dear Alfred! Advance, offspring of tender love, child of our hopes; advance a soldier on the road to which I have been the pioneer! I will make way for thee. I have already put off the carelessness of chilhood, the unlined brow, and sprightly gait of early years, that they may adorn thee. Advance; and I will despoil myself still further for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of maturity, shall take the fire from my eyes, and agility from my limbs, shall steal the better part of life, eager expectation and passionate love, and shower them in double portion on thy dear head. Advance! Avail thyself of the fit, thou and thy comrades; and in the drama you are about to act, do not disgrace those who taught you to enter on the stage, and to pronounce becomingly the parts assigned to you! May your progress be uninterrupted and secure; born during the springtide of the hopes of man, may you lead up the summer to which no winter may succeed!

—oOo—