Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Seven Ages of Man stained-glass windows

Seven Ages of Man stained-glass windows

1942

This sequence of seven stained-glass windows depicts the stages of life so eloquently expressed in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII):

At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then, the whining schoolboy 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,

And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Along with the famous ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech, which was the inspiration for these windows, the play As You Like It is also the source of the popular phrase ‘too much of a good thing’.

Shakespeare’s play As You Like It is thought to have been written about 1598–1600, during the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was first published in 1623 in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, a copy of which is in the Library’s collection.

A comedy about love and mistaken identity, As You Like It tells the story of Rosalind, who, banished from the royal court, sets out in disguise to find her love Orlando, who has also fled from court.