The Camino Norte

Shakespeare and The Camino 

In high school I had to tackle Shakespeare's R&J. Only many years later did I see the pay-off for the hard work in digging into what is behind the play. 

There have been many days, more so since I have been walking the Camino outside of Spain, where the pay-off seemed distant if not impossibly far away.

Anyway I share this memoir because Shakespeare and the Camino have something in common: they are both very very hard and very very beautiful.

Aragon: July 2023

Romeo and Juliet 

Intro

In my sophomore year at King’s Preparatory High School, English had the usual combination of vocabulary, grammar and, of course, American and Foreign Literature. 

I know the Bard of Avon, the great William Shakespeare, was English, but the English in which he wrote was a foreign language to me. 

Sr Carol

This story concerns Sister Carol Cimino, School Sisters of St Joseph. The odd twist is that, according to my yearbooks, she taught History and Economics, but it was through her that I took the journey to see Zefferelli’s “Romeo and Juliet”. 

R&J

I have trouble remembering my classmates and I reading aloud Shakespearian poetry of teen-angst, teen-passion, teen-love and ultimately teen-suicide. 

And I had lots of trouble understanding the big-screen, evocative delivery of the same iambic pentameter by Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey in the movie. 

 The big scandal, if it could be called that, was the moments of nudity of both Whiting and Hussey, 17 and 16 at the time, the lead actors. However, the film was rated “G”, despite the nudity. 

Sr Carol Takes a Chance

Sister Carol must have given serious thought to have a school trip to see this version of R&J. 

I’m pretty sure that I never went to my parents to say that my Catholic school was having a school trip to see a young man and woman in various stages of undress and here is the note for you (my parents) to approve the excursion. 

The Talk

 There is something that I am crystal clear on. I remember the class where Sister Carol explained to us ( boys and girls) that we were going to see “Romeo and Juliet”. 

We had a discussion about sex and nudity … more like she did most of the talking. Sister Carol explained that the nakedness in the movie was, to use her word, “tasteful nudity”, and therefore, it was okay for us as Catholic teen-agers to see the film. 

But it was the way that she explained it all. She talked to us like we were old enough to be mature enough to understand. What can I tell you? I was a, as we all were, young and immature, but all of us behaved ourselves … no snickering, no jokes. 

Muxia: July 2023

Shakespeare Is Hard Work

But reading R&J at home, and then in class, I still did not understand the English of Shakespeare’s time. I read the words and spoke the words, but I had no handle on the context of the words.

 Sometimes I doubted that I even had the big picture. Shakespeare’s language was so foreign and deep with hidden meanings, that such things eluded me at the time. 

The Pay-off

Decades later, while dating a Shakespeare-o-phile, I wrapped myself deep in the emotions behind the words and grabbed onto the depth of revenge and compassion, of tragedy and comedy, of fate and purpose and of hate and love in the bard’s exploration of what it means to be human. 

 Through Sister Carol, I started a Shakespearean journey. Many years later I finally got it. 

Allow me to paraphrase the opening narration of “The Outer Limits”. If he wishes to make it louder, he brings up the volume. If he wishes to make it softer, he tunes it to a whisper. He controls the horizontal. He controls the vertical. He can roll the image, make it flutter. He can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next two hours, I sit raptly and he controls all that I see and hear. I am about to participate in a great adventure. I am about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits.” 

Lutherstadt-Wittenberg: Jan 2024

Wrap-up

Even though it was forty three years later, Sister Carol’s introduction helped me submerge myself in everything that Shakespeare offers for the rest of my life. 

I started with Sr Carol, and I am still exploring the magic of the human soul, the mystery of the human heart and the wonder of the human condition.