THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN

 

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN 

Thomas Hardy (English novelist : 1840-1928) said happiness is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain. Unlike Shakespeare (1564-1616), he did not believe character is fate, He found that human happiness is undeservedly spoiled by chance and accident.  He is thus a pessimistic novelist.  But Shakespeare is also not  optimistic throughout. Look at the following poem taken from his play As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7. It is addressed by a philosophic character Jaques to the Duke S..

                    The poem reads as follows:

                         “All the world’s a stage,

And all men and women merely players:

They have their exit and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many part,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms:

Then the whining school-boy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick to 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 pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide

For the shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And wishes in his sound.  Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.:

 

            There is neither a happy beginning with ‘the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms ‘and ‘ the whining school-boy…creeping like snail unwillingly to school’ nor a happy ending showing man in his ‘second childishness…sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’   

            Jaques poem is preceded by Duke S’s view on unhappiness:

            “Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

            This wide and universal theatre

            Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

            Wherein we play in.”

 

            Philosophically speaking, life is a tale of suffering. As for Shakespeare’s philosophy, it can be rightly imagined that as he grew older, he became less optimistic about mankind.    

                       

            According to German scholar Friedrich Zimmermann, bearing the pseudonym Subhadra Bhikshu (1852-1917): “To be born is to suffer: to grow old is to suffer: to die is to suffer: to be tied to what is not loved is to suffer.  In short, all the results of individuality , of separate self-hood, necessarily involve pain or suffering. “

 

            In Indian philosophy, it is largely  Buddhism which deals with human pain and suffering.  “Birth is painful; decay is painful; disease is painful; union with the unpleasant is painful; separation from the pleasant  is painful.” The dualist Samkhya philosophy which deals with both  consciousness and matter also recognises three kinds of human suffering. (i) suffering  due to bodily diseases and mental ailments; (ii) suffering due to other men and animals; (iii) suffering due to supernatural agencies.

 

            It is an optimistic  feature that both Buddhism and Samkhya philosophy have not only recognised the causes of human suffering but have  also discovered and preached the way which leads to the destruction of sorrow. In this respect, Buddha’s eightfold formula comprising Right views; right aspirations; right speech; right behaviour; right livelihood; right effort; right thoughts and right contemplation is the most popular and the most effective.

            To conclude , Buddha’s  cumulative  suggestion  about liberation from sorrow:   

Let go all the lusts and desires of egotism. Don’t cling to covetousness and sensuality inherited from former existence. Surender the grasping disposition of selfishness so as to attain perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom. By doing so you will discover the path of salvation and walk on it steadily.   

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30 April 2022                                                               G.R.KANWAL