Crossroads
While going through Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" I noticed in Act 3, Scene2 this little speech from Robin Goodfellow:
My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shine's Aurora's harbinger,
At whose approach, ghosts wand'ring here and there
Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial.
The play is supposed to be set in ancient Athens, but, of course, it's not. It's interesting that Shakespeare has knowledge of the practice of burying suicides in crossroads. Crossroads as liminal areas, places betwixt and between, places of filth and dirt, have a long, long history.
Images courtesy of Martin Liebermann:
