Beauty and fear

Once again, I have started reading The Tempest, a play that seems to be assigned each and every semester to me. I can honestly say though, that until tonight The Tempest never spoke to me in the way that it does now. I never appreciated this piece of work to this extent.

The first thing that got me was the representation of the sea- this vast unknown place. It got me thinking about not only the amazingly dark, yet beautiful imagery in The Tempest, but the music that surrounds the island. I found a song, used in the movie of The Tempest, Sigur Ros "Sæglópur" (meaning: lost at sea) the song is sung in Icelandic (and also mixed with "hopelandic"- talk about imagination), from what I have gathered through translations, it is about a seafarer, lost and returning home.



Similar to Shakespeare, this music video leaves the viewer hanging on, wondering if the child was actually saved- it reflects the imagination and desire for resolution.

The sea and the storm in The Tempest depicts fear and chaos in a more imaginative way than anything else I have come across.
GONZALO:
"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground: long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death."

The sea is an enormous creature with more life in it than we could ever fathom. The enormity of its waves and its ability to completely engulf us in one sweep overwhelms my mind. Miranda provides for me (at least within the first 2 acts) the most beautiful, frightening image of the sea when she says:

"If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. Oh, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her
Dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed and
The fraughting souls within her."

Souls, lives, evils, dreams- all captured in this one body of water. I find the sea to be extremely terrifying, yet stunning all at once. It draws me to its waters, though I am hesitant. I remember this feeling when I was whale watching (I will not capture this well enough through words), the day was cloudy, the temperature within the 60's. As we went further out to sea, the wind picked up, the sky grew darker- I was so excited to be on this boat, viewing the most spectacular life that we could ever catch a glimpse of. These enormous creatures, in those vast, dark waters, deeper than I could ever imagine. Leaning over the boat and trying not to blink so as not to miss one moment, a humpback whale approached the boat within feet (I was amazed and had never even see a humpback whale up close!!!!!). Here I was looking so hard to spot a whale and he was there right in front of me. Anyways, the whale was so close, the boat so small- I thought to myself, "dear god, this whale, or these waves could swallow me up in a second". I was ok with dying in that moment if that is what it came to be. My fear became excitement and anxiety all in one. I always have said to myself that if I die, it will be doing something I love- I would have died enchanted, loving, breathless.

When I spent a month in Carmel, CA, the ocean became an escape for me. I wandered down to the beach so often to think, journal, and just be. The sound of the waves crashing were soothing. The sea doesn't speak, it just sings. A constant rhythm- back and forth. I wrote in the sand, one single word knowing that within mere seconds, it would be erased, washed into the sea- no longer with me but somewhere deeper, hidden. This became a habit for me, a therapy of sorts. There was always anxiety though watching those waves wash away a part of me, those grains of sand that my fingers ran through, creating something larger, never to be touched or seen by me again.

The personification of nature (specifically the sea and sky) never ceases to amaze me in The Tempest. There are elements of fear and pity reflected through the sea and sky and this next excerpt created an image that I wish I could draw out. It is so clear in my head and I am going to try to illustrate it this week!! The sea screams, but the sky sighs. BRILLIANT! I don't know if anyone could do imagery of the sky and sea as well as Shakespeare does in this play! I am speechless.
"There they hoist us
To cry to th' sea that roared to us, to sigh
To th' winds whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong."

The next lines that I really, so badly want to capture through my own, very personal illustrations are these:
"Salt of the sea and salt of tears.
When I have decked the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burthen groaned;"
We have the sea, a single tear drop. This quote speaks to me on a much deeper level than I realized until I started blogging. I want more time to really think and write about this though. I am feeling fatigued, overwhelmed with emotion and weighted down by more than I can handle at the moment. I have more to say about tears, the sea- and those two things becoming one.