Note E134 — 25.
Reading edition
"All quickly forgot as a play on a stage." Comp. Shakspere, As you Like it, Act ii. sc. 7: "All the world's a stage," etc., and Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1, where Antonio calls the world "A stage where every man must play a part." "Totus mundus agit histrionem," from a fragment of Petronius, is said to have been the motto on the Globe Theatre. Calderon wrote a play called El Teatro del Mundo (The Theatre of the World). It is remarkable for containing the lines:
"En el teatro del mundo Todos son representantes,"
i.e. in the stage of the world all men are players.—W. W. S. In the old play of Damon and Pythias (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 31) the following occurs:
"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage, Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage Philosophers are, said he, whose part is to learn The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."
The same comparison occurs also in Don Quixote, part ii. cap. 12. See note E378.