Shakespeare said it best...
"To unpathed waters, undreamed shores."
Shakespeare had a way with words and I don't quote him very often.
In a concise manner Shakespeare tells us that if we don't experience challenges in life, we will never make new discoveries.
I would like to think that Shakespeare must have fantasized about the faraway places he frequently used as settings in his plays.
In The Merchant of Venice, he writes of the business conducted on the Rialto, a bridge that still stands today. In the same play, the setting transitions to Belmont, an area that only existed in Shakespeare’s mind but could certainly be set in the tropical Italian mountains of the north near Lago Maggiore, a most beautiful area bordering Switzerland. It is here that the wise Portia meets her suitors and must choose one to marry her.
Romeo and Juliet, of course, is set in Verona. Tourists can see Juliet’s golden statue (a tourist trap, I might add) in the Capulet courtyard.
Hamlet’s action takes place in Denmark and Macbeth’s gory scenes and battles, in Scotland.
Incredibly, this prolific playwright never set foot outside of England.
Why is it that the “unpathed waters, undreamed shores” never pulled him in their direction? Most probably, he was too busy earning a living. Life must have been difficult at times for the playwright as he tried to earn the trust, not to mention the commissions, from two reigning monarchs.
This mermaid was painted last year for a Let’s Face it online class assignment using techniques I had never tried before. For example, I mixed watercolour pencils and acrylics, and used a sea fan coral as a stamp.
