If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’ld jump the life to come.
Nabokov and Bellow have compared life to a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. I’ve just found out that in Macbeth, I vii, Shakespeare compares it to bank of sand, a shoal of sand. The sea, as a symbol of infinite chaos, around a fragil and narrow sandbank upon we will start on all fours, then running happy, walking tired later, until we sink at the other shore. But, nevertheless we will be able to lay for a while, and look at the stars, eat a banana.