THE SEVENTH AGE OF MAN
In his play As You Like
it the English poet-playwright William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) makes a cynical character Jaques sing a poem which
divides a man’s life into seven ages.
The seventh age which is the last scene of life’s strange and eventful history
” Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste,
sans every thing.”
An old man with his now most inefficient organs feels not
only disabled but also lonely and abandoned. He is an unhappy, unclaimed and burdensome member of the family suffering
from multiple diseases. If he complains as a neglected man, he is disliked and unwanted
all the more.
According to a popular saying : We hope to grow old, yet we
fear old age; that is we are willing to live, and afraid to die.
Morally, old age should be respected, given all sorts of
comforts – physical, mental and emotional and provided with good company of
friends and relatives who can indulge in with some interesting talk and easy to
do activity like telling stories or playing cards.
Finally, the following words of the English politician William
Cullen Bryant (1794 -1878): Old age,
says he, is wise for itself, but not for
the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the
power or the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it
has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the
faculty ofready and swift action by which dangers are parried and converted
into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new
enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.
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G.R.Kanwal
7 July 2024
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