Life and Death
‹ 9 · Outline
10.Death in the world: plague, war, famine and the sea
10a.Plague and epidemic disease
See also: Medicine 8b · Charity 4a
Sophocles, Oedipus the KingVol. 8
- p. 209–215Plague kills numberless people, infants and aged mothers mourn; souls pass swiftly to Hades.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 284–288The uncle collapses dead, suffocated by vapour; his body found intact, looking asleep.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 320–321The people died of famine, leaving what they built and treasured; only a vestige remains.read · scan
The Voyages to VinlandVol. 43
- p. 10Illness kills Thori and many of his people, and Eric the Red dies that winter.read · scan
- p. 13–14Thorstein's sickness and death in winter; the dead are buried at the church.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 136–137Sons die of hunger on the fifth and sixth days; hunger overcomes grief.read · scan
Amerigo Vespucci, Amerigo Vespucci's Account of His First VoyageVol. 43
- p. 28The sick are left to survive or die alone in the forest; few escape.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 49A plague kills thousands daily in Rome and terrifies him into avoiding people.read · scan
- p. 52Stricken with plague symptoms, abandoned by everyone, Cellini believes himself a dead man.read · scan
- p. 53–54Cellini faces expected death in plague season, arranging for his money to go to his father, then recovers.read · scan
- p. 82–83Plague has killed his father and the household.read · scan
- p. 83–84Each sibling believed the other dead; the family has lost relatives, but the living turn from talk of dead folk.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 245–247Selling musty corn breeds plague among the poor, killing thousands, for which farmers bear guilt.read · scan
Sir Francis Drake, Sir Francis Drake RevivedVol. 33
- p. 165–166Many men die of calenture, including the captain's brother Joseph in his arms.read · scan
Captain Walter Bigges, Drake's Great ArmadaVol. 33
- p. 239Hundreds die within days of leaving Santiago; survivors are left with impaired wits and strength.read · scan
- p. 258–259750 men lost, three quarters to sickness; the notable dead are listed.read · scan
Thomas Nashe, In Time of Pestilence; SpringVol. 40
- p. 260–261Plague poem: death spares none; wealth, beauty, strength and wit all fall to the grave.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 319Adam sees the first death, Abel's murder, then a lazar-house of diseases with Death triumphant; many shapes of dying.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 96–97A fifth of mankind die or are disfigured by smallpox; thousands of deaths in Paris could have been avoided.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 96Death of his four-year-old son from smallpox.read · scan
John Woolman, The Journal of John WoolmanVol. 1
- p. 182–183His eldest sister dies of smallpox.read · scan
- p. 308–309Kinsman William Hunt dies of smallpox while on a religious visit.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 72–74Want, famine and mortality prevail; hundreds of thousands die of hunger in Bengal.read · scan
- p. 80Child mortality among the poor, soldiers' and foundling children is very high.read · scan
Edward Jenner, The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against SmallpoxVol. 38
- p. 194–195The second attack of smallpox kills Langford and his sister.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 76–78Death boasts Hornbook's pills and drops have killed a score, filling kirkyards faster than he could.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 456Starving people collapse and die on the pavement.read · scan
- p. 458–459Thousands perish or languish without assistance.read · scan
- p. 459Mortality in the starving multitude; corpses lie by the road, such as a dead woman with her infant.read · scan
- p. 463–464Mortality soars past a hundred deaths daily amid constant spectacle of death.read · scan
- p. 465Most of the sick sent to the beggars' hospital perish; plague lingers into autumn.read · scan
- p. 500–502Corpses lie in houses and on highways as families sicken and die.read · scan
- p. 506–507The soldier dies on the fourth day and many in the household die of infection.read · scan
- p. 524–525Plague mortality mounts to hundreds and thousands daily; corpses, dying infants and mass burial dominate the city.read · scan
- p. 536Don Rodrigo, mocking a friend's death, is stricken by plague symptoms and denies them as wine.read · scan
- p. 537–539Rodrigo discovers the plague spot and is seized by terror of death and of being carried to the Lazzaretto.read · scan
- p. 541–542Griso's sudden plague death the day after, abandoned by companions and stripped by monatti.read · scan
- p. 543Renzo takes the plague and survives through a strong constitution; life's return renews his hopes and cares.read · scan
- p. 544–545Health is now prized above all; each hopes the other survives the epidemic.read · scan
- p. 545Plague survivors move freely and boldly amid fearful people living in constant apprehension of the contagion.read · scan
- p. 546Renzo passes solitude, wandering shadows and unhonoured corpses; his village silence and tolls evoke the plague's devastation.read · scan
- p. 546–547Plague has ruined Tonio's mind and body and left Don Abbondio pale and emaciated.read · scan
- p. 549–550The plague's toll: survivors who escaped it, enumeration of dead families, talk of the end of the world.read · scan
- p. 553The plague has emptied the rooms and killed officials; a relief to speak of miserable things.read · scan
- p. 554–555Along the road Renzo sees the usual spectacles of plague misery; shopkeepers take precautions with vinegar-water for coins.read · scan
- p. 557Milan is silent and deserted; infected goods burn outside the walls, the pall of plague over the city.read · scan
- p. 558Monatti carry away the customs chief stricken by plague at the gate.read · scan
- p. 560–561Corpses, shut-up houses and starving children mark the plague's ravages in Milan.read · scan
- p. 562–563Carts of naked, heaped corpses attended by monatti show the plague's horrifying degradation of death.read · scan
- p. 564Plague-stricken Milan: sealed houses, corpses in streets, a city of the living scarcely distinguishable from the dead.read · scan
- p. 565–567Monatti collect the dead in bustling carts amid general mourning; survivors are few.read · scan
- p. 568–569Death takes mother and children like scythe-cut flowers; she awaits death calmly, hoping to join her daughter.read · scan
- p. 569–570Plague victims driven to the Lazzaretto, or the grave, resisting or resigned to death.read · scan
- p. 572–573Fear of the funeral carts restrains pursuers, which Renzo turns into a means of safety.read · scan
- p. 577The dying and the stricken flock to the Lazzaretto; misery of mortality in the plague.read · scan
- p. 578Sixteen thousand plague victims, dead and dying crowd the Lazzaretto in an immense den of suffering.read · scan
- p. 578Faces contracted in suffering or motionless in death.read · scan
- p. 579Hundreds sink rapidly under the oppressive heat; the dying groan.read · scan
- p. 586–587Friar warns how few recover in the Lazzaretto and urges sacrifice.read · scan
- p. 589Rodrigo lies dying of plague, a near-corpse clinging to life.read · scan
- p. 592–593Life is God's gift; the survivors are a remnant amid thousands dead, and should use life worthily.read · scan
- p. 597–598Both have survived the plague; Lucia says the Lord left her a little longer below.read · scan
- p. 599–600Lucia says they have not long in this world; Cristoforo may be dying of plague.read · scan
- p. 600–601Cristoforo, visibly sick, totters while tending others.read · scan
- p. 603The tradeswoman's whole family died of plague; the sick companions survive and comfort each other.read · scan
- p. 604–605Cristoforo closes a dying person's eyes amid the plague camp.read · scan
- p. 605Cristoforo, weary and plague-stricken, walks with difficulty as a storm gathers.read · scan
- p. 622–623Father Cristoforo has died of the plague, heard with sorrow.read · scan
- p. 624–625Don Ferrante takes the plague and dies from it.read · scan
- p. 630–631Plague carried off the young and vigorous by hundreds.read · scan
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household TalesVol. 17
- p. 76The stepmother argues all four must die of hunger unless the children are got rid of.read · scan
Lord Byron, ManfredVol. 18
- p. 429–430Plague kills thousands; the dead are blest not seeing their nation's desolation.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1334–1335A pestilence floods the city with death, sparing neither wealth nor beauty; the poor die in the almshouse.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 357–358Victims invariably die within five days once the disease appears.read · scan
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Contagiousness of Puerperal FeverVol. 38
- p. 232Funeral bells and desolated firesides evoke the deaths of mothers behind the published facts.read · scan
- p. 236–237Dates of delivery and death record the rapid fatality of the fever.read · scan
- p. 241Mothers die in distress days after childbirth.read · scan
- p. 246Mothers and infants die within days after delivery by physicians who had handled infected bodies.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Twenty-Four Years AfterVol. 23
- p. 398Thompson, Channing and others die of coast-fever; the voyage ends in melancholy disaster.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 121Michael Collins dies of exhaustion and want of food.read · scan
- p. 122Deceased died of syncope and exhaustion from want of food after months on bread alone.read · scan
Louis Pasteur, The Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine and SurgeryVol. 38
- p. 366–367Life is at the mercy of multiplying minute bodies, a terrifying thought.read · scan
Louis Pasteur, On the Extension of the Germ Theory to the Etiology of Certain Common DiseasesVol. 38
- p. 376–377Death of the mother is traced to blood parasites present days earlier.read · scan
- p. 378–379Deaths of mothers and newborn from infection.read · scan
- p. 379–380Records a painful long illness and the woman's death, with autopsy after dying.read · scan
10b.War, murder and execution
See also: War and Peace 3b
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 154–155Ghost of Agamemnon, weak and weeping, narrates his pitiful death and the slaughter at the feast.read · scan
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
- p. 23The hart's flight ends in death.read · scan
Aeschylus, AgamemnonVol. 8
- p. 30Uncertain whether Menelaus lives; a wound to many homes consecrated to death.read · scan
- p. 56She resolves to dare death and prays Hades for a swift, painless stroke.read · scan
Aeschylus, The Libation-BearersVol. 8
- p. 112Aegisthus slain; Clytemnestra faces death by the same craft she used.read · scan
Euripides, The BacchaeVol. 8
- p. 419Pentheus is horribly dismembered, his head carried on a wand as a lion's.read · scan
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 248Deaths of Almon and the old peaceful Galesus show the cost of the madness.read · scan
Plutarch, AlcibiadesVol. 12
- p. 144–145Dramatic account of his death and burial by Timandra.read · scan
- p. 145Alternate cause of Alcibiades' death by fire and darts.read · scan
Plutarch, CiceroVol. 12
- p. 257–258Quintus and his son are betrayed and slain; Cicero contemplates killing himself.read · scan
- p. 258–259Cicero's murder by Herennius, his severed head and hands displayed on the Rostra, and his calm, worn appearance before death.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 997–998Killing one soul equals killing all men; saving one equals saving all.read · scan
The Destruction of Dá Derga's HostelVol. 49
- p. 246–247Conaire's son dies under Mac cecht's armpit, and the wounded warrior is nipped by a wolf in his wound.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 38–39The sage faces certain death, settles his affairs and prepares his revenge; his severed head speaks.read · scan
- p. 86Her life is lost in the fire after she destroys her enemy, whose life lay in a single grain.read · scan
- p. 180He survives among corpses, feigning death, with salt stanching his wounds by God's providence.read · scan
- p. 354He buries the boy to die of hunger, reasoning that the living hath no murderer.read · scan
- p. 428Ali Baba is struck with horror at his brother's dismembered corpse.read · scan
Songs from the Elder EddaVol. 49
- p. 374–377Sigurd is murdered in bed and dying, hurls his sword to slay his killerread · scan
- p. 436–438Gunnar dies in the worm-close, stung by Atli's mother, as Hogni's heart is cut out.read · scan
The Story of the Volsungs and NiblungsVol. 49
- p. 277–278Sinfjotli falls dead from poison; Sigmund's grief and the vanishing ferryman with the corpse suggest passage to death.read · scan
- p. 327–328Sigurd is slain in bed but kills his slayer; Gudrun wakes in his blood.read · scan
- p. 328–330The women recount deaths of kin in war and at sea.read · scan
- p. 350–351Gunnar is killed by an adder's sting in the worm-close.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 162Violent deaths in flight and battle; body swept away by flood.read · scan
- p. 162–165Pia tells of her death at her husband's hands; Buonconte's body swept away by Archiano.read · scan
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales; The Nun's Priest's TaleVol. 40
Traditional BalladsVol. 40
- p. 82–84Sir Hugh is lured, stabbed and drowned in a well; his corpse meets his mother.read · scan
- p. 98–100Nobles die in numbers and their bodies are carried home for burial.read · scan
- p. 114–116George Campbell's death is told through the empty bloody saddle; Yarrow's lord is slain in a treacherous combat.read · scan
- p. 116–118She faces her hanging with defiant wine-drinking, bravado giving way to tears.read · scan
- p. 118–120Marie faces hanging, recalling how the Queen she served is thankless; one of four Maries will be lost.read · scan
- p. 120–122Braikley and his kin are slain in the battle.read · scan
- p. 184–186Robin is betrayed and killed by bloodletting through the prioress and her lover; the poet prays for his soul.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 245The castellan dies, and a plot to poison Cellini begins.read · scan
- p. 245Believing himself doomed by murder, he faces imminent death.read · scan
- p. 426–427Cellini survives poison too weak to overcome his vigorous constitution, and takes over a year to regain vigor.read · scan
Ambroise Paré, Journeys in Diverse PlacesVol. 38
- p. 15–16A soldier, struck to the brain, keeps reason and walks but dies; a wonder to the surgeon.read · scan
- p. 31Twenty thousand died of fighting, plague, cold and starvation; unburied bodies left in the camp.read · scan
- p. 33–34Many enemy soldiers died of starvation, plague and cold in the snow, poorly sheltered and barefoot.read · scan
- p. 38He judges the wound mortal and Martigues doomed within days.read · scan
- p. 45Corrupted corpses unrecognizable, wounded dying despite care.read · scan
- p. 47–48The King of Navarre dies on the eighteenth day after his wound.read · scan
- p. 48–49The Count d'Eu dies of his shattered thigh, and the dying are stripped and buried alive in gabions.read · scan
Sir Walter Raleigh, The Discovery of GuianaVol. 33
- p. 344A young negro is taken and devoured by a lagarto before the company's eyes.read · scan
Christopher Marlowe, Edward the SecondVol. 46
- p. 42–43Gaveston accepts that whether beheaded or hanged, death is all.read · scan
- p. 54–56Warwick bids farewell to a vain world as he goes to execution.read · scan
- p. 83–86Edward, fearing sleep will be death, pleads not to die yet and is murdered.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 114–117Poison courses through the body and kills the sleeping king swiftly.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of MacbethVol. 46
- p. 339–340The bell is a knell summoning Duncan to heaven or hell.read · scan
- p. 344Macduff bids all wake from sleep, death's counterfeit, to look on death itself and the great doom's image.read · scan
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 191–192Killing a good book is like killing a man, destroying reason and God's image.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 415Terrible noise reveals slaughter; Manoa fears his son is slain.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 249–250Great-heart fights and kills the giant Maul, his head displayed on a pillar; killing as deliverance, not reflection on death.read · scan
Jean Racine, PhaedraVol. 26
- p. 191Narrated death of Hippolytus, dragged by his horses.read · scan
William Hamilton of Bangour, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 572–574A swain slain on the braes of Yarrow; his body floats on the flood and is mourned.read · scan
Jane Elliot, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 483The prime of the land are cold in the clay.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 31–33Faust reflects that truth-tellers died on crosses or in flames; he feels dwarfed by the spirit and thrown back on uncertain human fate.read · scan
- p. 180–182The vision's frozen gaze and red line about the neck foreshadow Gretchen's death.read · scan
Thomas Campbell, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 780–781Few shall part where many meet; snow their winding-sheet and soldier's sepulchre.read · scan
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household TalesVol. 17
- p. 140–141The cook plans to boil the foundling alive.read · scan
George Gordon, Lord Byron, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 801–802Death by fire, field and dungeon; the last brother left alone after the others droop and die.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 310They plot Cenci's murder by hired outlaws, who trample any life for caprice; Beatrice's ravine image likens a soul clinging to life.read · scan
- p. 355Final farewells as the guards come to lead them to execution.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 225Hunters shoot the ganders dead in the swamp; the duckling barely survives.read · scan
- p. 328–329The Learned Man is deprived of life while the wedding celebrations go on.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1297–1299A cheerful youth is suddenly killed on picket duty.read · scan
- p. 1299–1300A sudden bullet kills the young soldier and its effect reaches a far-off town where his beloved dies.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 169–170Failed Spanish colonies ended in famine and massacre; Port Famine's name records the sufferings of wretched people.read · scan
- p. 218Old women are killed by hunger-pressed kin and fear this death; famine dominates life.read · scan
- p. 307Fewer than a hundred died because people run outdoors; a night quake would have killed thousands.read · scan
- p. 364Travellers and mules perished in a cold gale; the guide's brother died, and a whole party vanished.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1043–1044The brother dies in the duel; the speaker hears a cry for a brother's blood until he dies.read · scan
William Makepeace Thackeray, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1058–1059Untimely deaths and mourning of mothers, dear friends killed.read · scan
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1174–1175The king's death with sixteen wounds is narrated.read · scan
Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of GettysburgVol. 43
- p. 331–332Reynolds shot through the head and killed almost instantly; his body met in an ambulance.read · scan
- p. 332–333Men lie down to sleep, many for their last, 'the great final sleep'; a general's death is noted.read · scan
- p. 351–352Men dropping dead and wounded by scores, officers mortally struck.read · scan
- p. 353–354Thousands lie dead and mutilated, and the silence after the roar of battle; Northern and Southern men lie quiet together.read · scan
- p. 367Lieutenant Ropes, a refined and noble officer, is killed instantly by an accident, making his death doubly painful.read · scan
- p. 370–371Captain Farrel, sent to his regiment, is killed within hours along with much of his company.read · scan
- p. 371Men who lay dead no longer hear the roar; their bodies are only mud.read · scan
- p. 388–389Dead of many Northern states lie mingled on the crest, having given their lives to the country.read · scan
- p. 405Pallid cheeks and dim eyes show how near life's source the bullets have gone.read · scan
- p. 407Stillness of death pervades the field, with corpses under bushes and rocks.read · scan
- p. 410–412Sleeping dead in their graves disturbed by the battle; mortality contrasted with the living observer.read · scan
10c.Shipwreck, drowning and death at sea
See also: Courage 8f
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 75–76He wishes he had died at Troy, yet clings to the raft, avoiding death in the sea.read · scan
- p. 167Six men are devoured shrieking in the death-struggle.read · scan
- p. 171–172The pilot is killed and the crew are swept away and drowned.read · scan
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 73Aeneas prefers death in battle to drowning; present death appears in various forms.read · scan
- p. 202Palinurus is thrown into the sea by the god of Sleep and dies; Aeneas grieves his loss.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 251A gruesome, beast-like death by slaughter and roasting of the ship's master.read · scan
- p. 253Men prefer drowning to death by roasting and weigh modes of dying, resigned to what God wills.read · scan
- p. 275Impelled by the sweetness of life, he struggles to survive the wreck and lies at his last breath.read · scan
- p. 282–283Passengers bid farewell as shipwreck drowns many and survivors land on the mountain.read · scan
- p. 283–284Companions die one by one and are buried; Sindbad alone digs his own grave awaiting death.read · scan
Traditional BalladsVol. 40
- p. 55–57Drowned maiden is found; harper makes a harp of her hair which laments her death.read · scan
- p. 66–68Annie and her son drown; Gregor kisses her lips finding no breath, no spark of life.read · scan
- p. 74–76Sir Patrick and the Scots lords drown while ladies wait in vain.read · scan
Sir Francis Drake, Sir Francis Drake RevivedVol. 33
- p. 163Sickness takes the quartermaster Charles Glub, to the captain's and company's grief; the rest recover.read · scan
- p. 164John Drake and Richard Allen die from wounds; the young man is greatly lamented by the company.read · scan
- p. 166–167Twenty-eight men have died; the island is named Slaughter Island.read · scan
Edward Haies, Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to NewfoundlandVol. 33
- p. 285–286Sickness and death diminish the company; Haies himself near death.read · scan
- p. 289Nearly a hundred souls perish, including a learned Hungarian who meant to record the voyage.read · scan
- p. 290Survivors reach land while two die of famine; God ordains manner and time of dying.read · scan
- p. 295–296The frigate is swallowed by the sea and Gilbert lost.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 399Faced with drowning, Gonzalo would trade the sea for an acre of barren ground and die a dry death.read · scan
- p. 410–413The song transforms the drowned father's body into coral and pearl, a sea-change into something rich and strange.read · scan
John Milton, Poems Written at Horton, 1632-1638Vol. 4
- p. 72Mourners strew flowers for Lycidas whose body is lost at sea, then are told to weep no more as he is not dead.read · scan
John Woolman, The Journal of John WoolmanVol. 1
- p. 222–223A woman disconsolate over a dream of death and judgment; her visitor's husband drowns soon after.read · scan
William Cowper, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 539–541Man abandoned at sea fights death and drowns.read · scan
Charles Dibdin, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 502Death of sailor Tom Bowling told in nautical metaphors; death dispatches kings and tars alike.read · scan
Anonymous PoemsVol. 41
- p. 498–499Willie is found drowned in Yarrow.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 222–224The poet faces a voyage and possible watery grave with jesting unconcern.read · scan
Sir Walter Scott, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 749–751The Saint Clair barons lie buried in the chapel, but the sea holds Rosabelle.read · scan
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household TalesVol. 17
- p. 206All seven die in the river, none reaching home.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 328The sea as an eternal cemetery that swallows fleets and men.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 244The Prince nearly drowns; she reflects that men cannot live in water and would die at her father's palace.read · scan
- p. 244–246The Prince is revived from near death as sunrise brings color to his cheeks.read · scan
- p. 249–250Skeletons of drowned sailors and animals held by polyps and the witch's bone house evoke death.read · scan
- p. 295–296Facing drowning, he hears the verse 'Die shalt thou this day.'read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1269–1271Father frozen dead at the helm, the ship wrecked and crew swept awayread · scan
- p. 1271–1273The wreck of the Hesperus ends in death; the smith mourns his wife in the graveread · scan
- p. 1289–1290Launching ship felt as thrill of life; sail into the sea of life; amid wreck of noble lives something immortal survives; youth remembered.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 38A young sailor falls overboard and drowns; the crew row about in vain, unwilling to give him up.read · scan
- p. 38Death at sea is more solemn than on shore: sudden, without body or grave, leaving mysterious absence.read · scan
- p. 372Most sailors die at sea without clergyman or religious friend to speak of hope in a Saviour.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Twenty-Four Years AfterVol. 23
- p. 388–389He wonders how the old sailors died, unknelled and unknown, while the survivors are hardened or buried.read · scan
- p. 400–401Brown dies falling into the hold, 'as a sailor, on board ship'.read · scan
Charles Kingsley, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1060–1062Maiden drowned by the tide on the sands of Dee; youth versus old age.read · scan
10d.Death personified and allegorized
See also: Sin 2c
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
The Bhagavad-Gita; or, Song CelestialVol. 45
- p. 831He is endless life and bitter death, and joyous birth of beings to come.read · scan
- p. 837–839Multitudes rush blindly to death, drawn to fiery doom.read · scan
- p. 839–841The Lord makes creatures and devours them; terror fills life from birth to death.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 269Human quarrels are like children's sports and spirits carrying corpses.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 165A dying Cellini is dragged toward a hideous boat by an old man, a vision of death, while his mind remains clear.read · scan
- p. 256–258Death menaces his enemies with shears; a sparrow's cry signals he will live and they die.read · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 843–845Antonio hears the echo as a voice of death; churches and cities die like men, and living thus is a mockery of life.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 108Hell as a universe of death where all life dies and death lives; Death is a monstrous figure at the gates.read · scan
- p. 125Death is born, brandishing his dart, made to destroy; Hell trembles at his name.read · scan
- p. 125Death is Sin's son and foe, would devour her but his end is bound up with hers; fate foretells his bane.read · scan
- p. 129Death grins at the promise his famine will be filled.read · scan
- p. 165Satan wonders whether the forbidden knowledge means death and resolves to tempt them: they taste and die; live while ye may, short pleasures.read · scan
- p. 290–291Sin and Death leave Hell to follow Satan to Earth and pave a bridge across Chaos.read · scan
- p. 292Death is inseparable from Sin and is drawn toward the mortal world.read · scan
- p. 297Death eagerly scents carnage and the mortal change of Earth, and helps build the bridge.read · scan
- p. 304Death and Sin arrive in Paradise; Death, ever hungry, is urged to devour all things.read · scan
- p. 304Sin and Death go to destroy and make all kinds mortal.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 64–65The Valley of the Shadow of Death lies in the way; two returning men warn of its danger.read · scan
- p. 65–66The Valley of the Shadow of Death is dark, dreadful and confused, spread over by Death's wings; the way to Heaven passes through it.read · scan
- p. 68–69Bones and mangled bodies of earlier pilgrims lie at the valley's end.read · scan
- p. 220Boy prefers the ladder to Life over the hill to Death.read · scan
Joseph Addison, The Vision of MirzaVol. 27
- p. 76Mirza laments man as swallowed up in death; the gates of death open on the bridge.read · scan
Hymns of the Christian Church: Modern HymnsVol. 45
- p. 571–572Life's shadows and death finding victims in the dark.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 51Burke cites Milton's portrait of Death as shapeless, dark and terrible, a sublime personification of the king of terrors through obscurity.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 38–40John Barleycorn is killed and revived; barley's cycle of growth, decay, harvest and rebirth allegorized.read · scan
- p. 58–60Comic epitaphs and tales of Death: he takes Rankine as the one honest man, and befriends the chapman Tam.read · scan
- p. 72–74Poet meets a figure of Death, scythe and dart, on a night walk.read · scan
- p. 75–76Death personified converses with the poet, complaining his work is hindered by Hornbook.read · scan
- p. 78–80Death complains Hornbook robs him of lawful prey, though he kills by poison himself.read · scan
- p. 543–545The poet recovers from a near-fatal illness, escaped grim Death and resolves to guard his health.read · scan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient MarinerVol. 41
- p. 687–688Spectre-woman Life-in-Death and her mate Death dice for the crew, winning the Mariner.read · scan
- p. 688–690The crew drops dead one by one while the Mariner lives on, cursed, unable to die among slimy creatures.read · scan
George Gordon, Lord Byron, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 784–785The Angel of Death destroys the Assyrian host overnight, turning a gleaming army into silent corpses.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 861–863Urania hastens to the dead Adonais; Death is momentarily shamed and she wishes to die as he has.read · scan
Thomas Babington Macaulay, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 917Charon leads all ages to death and refuses any delay; death parts the living from loved ones.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 292–293Death with scythe registers him, will one day coffin him and bear him to the star.read · scan
- p. 297Both perish in the stove's fire, ending the tale.read · scan
- p. 307–308Death sits on the Emperor's chest wearing his crown, and the Emperor faces his own dying.read · scan
- p. 308–309The real Nightingale's song charms Death away from the Emperor and restores him to life.read · scan
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 922–923The sonnet's speaker, drawn back by a mystic Shape, guesses Death but hears 'Not Death, but Love.'read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1283–1284The dark sea is likened to Death, which divides and yet unites mankind.read · scan
Edgar Allan Poe, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1239–1241Bride's death by chilling wind; he lies beside her tomb; the play ends with the Conqueror Worm.read · scan
William Edmondstoune Aytoun, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 917–918Charon leads young and old alike to death; all beg delay, but the ferryman's journey is relentless and inescapable.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 93–94Ruskin contrasts true education as advancement in Life with worldly advancement that may be advancement in Death; life as a moral standard.read · scan
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1163–1164Death takes aim as he sings, a skull lurking above.read · scan
- p. 1177–1178The lover imagines losing the beloved and hearing Death's wing.read · scan
‹ 9 · Outline