Death be not proud
In John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X, Death be not proud, death is apostrophized, or directly addressed as though it were a person rather than an abstraction. The speaker remonstrates with death not to display pride, as humans do when others hail them as “Mighty and dreadful.” In lines 1 and 2, the speaker insists death is neither all-powerful nor worthy of awe and fear.
The people death appears to have conquered and deprived of further existence are not dead, nor can death ever claim the life of the speaker. Though the personification of death in line 1 seems to be dignified by a proper noun, we now see that the capitalized name was the opening line of the sentence. Thereafter, the lower-case “d” demeans the personage to a generic concept rather than an individual or a proper noun.
The speaker must now prove that those whom death thinks it has overthrown have not died. The argument of the second quatrain is that “rest and sleep” are death’s counterfeits. It is true that we derive pleasure from rest and sleep. If “pictures” or resemblances of death are as refreshing and relaxing to body and spirit as they are, then (the speaker’s spurious logic argues) the real thing must be even more salubrious. The best of men are ready and willing to seek the ultimate resting place.
Derisively, the speaker calls death a “slave,” forced to do the bidding of “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,” and to live in the slaves’ quarters with unwholesome roommates like “poison, war, and sickness.” Furthermore, drugs distilled of poppies and magicians’ charms or spells are capable of inducing sleep that is as good or better than that of death.. Therefore, why should the base person death swell with pride at his might and power?
What is claimed in the concluding couplet is that after the short nap imposed upon us by death, we awake to the eternal life of salvation. And in that life of the soul, death shall have no dominion (to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas). Death will die.
The sonnet
The people death appears to have conquered and deprived of further existence are not dead, nor can death ever claim the life of the speaker. Though the personification of death in line 1 seems to be dignified by a proper noun, we now see that the capitalized name was the opening line of the sentence. Thereafter, the lower-case “d” demeans the personage to a generic concept rather than an individual or a proper noun.
The speaker must now prove that those whom death thinks it has overthrown have not died. The argument of the second quatrain is that “rest and sleep” are death’s counterfeits. It is true that we derive pleasure from rest and sleep. If “pictures” or resemblances of death are as refreshing and relaxing to body and spirit as they are, then (the speaker’s spurious logic argues) the real thing must be even more salubrious. The best of men are ready and willing to seek the ultimate resting place.
Derisively, the speaker calls death a “slave,” forced to do the bidding of “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,” and to live in the slaves’ quarters with unwholesome roommates like “poison, war, and sickness.” Furthermore, drugs distilled of poppies and magicians’ charms or spells are capable of inducing sleep that is as good or better than that of death.. Therefore, why should the base person death swell with pride at his might and power?
What is claimed in the concluding couplet is that after the short nap imposed upon us by death, we awake to the eternal life of salvation. And in that life of the soul, death shall have no dominion (to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas). Death will die.
The sonnet