A small stream or a boundary; in literary usage, a destination or goal, especially death as the final destination.
From Old English burna 'stream', related to German Brunnen 'well' or 'spring'. The meaning 'boundary' developed from streams serving as natural borders. Literary sense of 'destination' popularized by Shakespeare's 'undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns'.
Shakespeare transformed this humble word for 'stream' into one of literature's most haunting metaphors for death in Hamlet's soliloquy. The image of death as an undiscovered country beyond a mysterious boundary captures both the finality and mystery of mortality.
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