Or What You Will

The name Illyria came straight from Twelfth Night. And unlike Italy, Illyria is part of a peninsula that has never been united. The name as she uses it sometimes means the duchy, sometimes the whole geographic expression that is the peninsula, and sometimes is a metonym for the whole world. The names of many of the other countries came from the Bible. Shakespeare and the Bible, what impeccable sources!

History doesn’t work like a story. It rarely wraps up satisfyingly. It’s full of perpetual loose ends and dangling motifs that any writer reading it immediately wants to tug on and tie up into bows.