Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief
Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief,Mother who brought forth grief,Merciless judgment and without appeal!Since thou alone hast made my heart to feelThis sadness and unweal,My tongue upbraideth thee without relief.
And now (for I must rid thy name of ruth)Behoves me speak the truthTouching thy cruelty and wickedness:Not that they be not known; but ne’erthelessI would give hate more stressWith them that feed on love in very sooth.
Out of this world thou hast driven courtesy,And virtue, dearly prized in womanhood;And out of youth’s gay moodThe lovely lightness is quite gone through thee.
Whom now I mourn, no man shall learn from meSave by the measure of these praises given.Whoso deserves not HeavenMay never hope to have her company.[15]
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
- ruth n.
- Sorrow for the misery of another; pity; tenderness. [From Rue, v.: cf. Icel. hryggedh, hrygedh.]
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- whoso pron.
- Whosoever. Piers Plowman.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief is in the public domain. This text is taken from The New Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #41085, the Dante Gabriel Rossetti translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Alighieri, Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief, in The New Life (1861), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #41085, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dante-vita-nuova/death-alway-cruel-pity-s-foe-in-chief.html, id L14440.
Form and metre
Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief is 20 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABBBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBBA chiefA · griefA · appealB · feelB · unwealB · reliefA
- 2 AABBBA ruthA · truthA · wickednessB · ne'erthelessB · stressB · soothA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Death, alway cruel, Pity’s foe in chief, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Mother who brought forth grief, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Merciless judgment and without appeal! | 10 | /˘˘/˘···˘/ |
| Since thou alone hast made my heart to feel | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| This sadness and unweal, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| My tongue upbraideth thee without relief. | 10 | ··/·˘···˘/ |
| And now (for I must rid thy name of ruth) | 10 | ·········· |
| Behoves me speak the truth | 6 | ······ |
| Touching thy cruelty and wickedness: | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| Not that they be not known; but ne’ertheless | 10 | ·········· |
| I would give hate more stress | 6 | ······ |
| With them that feed on love in very sooth. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Out of this world thou hast driven courtesy, | 11 | ······/˘/˘˘ |
| And virtue, dearly prized in womanhood; | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And out of youth’s gay mood | 6 | ······ |
| The lovely lightness is quite gone through thee. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Whom now I mourn, no man shall learn from me | 10 | ·········· |
| Save by the measure of these praises given. | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Whoso deserves not Heaven | 7 | /˘˘/·/˘ |
| May never hope to have her company.[15] | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.