Laura Chapin
5th Hour
April 26, 1999

          "Death, be not proud" is one man's speech of complaint toward what he has long seen as a formidable power. The speaker is, at first, hesitant to push death too far, for fear of some unknown consequence, but he soon takes a chance, trusts himself, and says what he has to say, not being struck down at his first word. The speaker is the representative of all mankind, and he scolds Death like a spoiled child for his conceit, his arrogance, and his ignorant presumption. He sees that death is simply an extended rest that one is guaranteed to wake up from forever.

          "Death, be not proud" at first appears to be one long stanza, but a closer look at the meaning and punctuation of this poem divides it into the form of both an English sonnet and an Italian sonnet. In support of the English view, each quatrain discusses a separate aspect of death and ends with a period. The sonnet even ends with a slant rhyming couplet, "One short sleep passed, we wake eternally,/ And death shall be no more; death thou shalt die." However, the first eight lines all have a similar tone of painfully restrained passion, emotion simmering below the surface. In the last sextet, that emotion breaks free. The rhyme scheme changes from ABBAABBA to CDDCEE in a dramatic power shift that leaves death with nothing but its own company.

          The first four lines are the thesis statement of the poem. The speaker commands that "Death, be not proud" with commas and long o sounds to slow the reader. "Mighty and dreadful" are large words of slightly less importance than the very short ones, "thou art not so." The unstressed, incidental words surrounding those words of importance are of medium length, such as "some" and "have," accentuating their prominence. The next line, "For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow" is bristling with t's that would make it impossible to say were it not for the calming influence of the o's. That is much like the scathing words of the speaker, hidden from death by diplomacy. The speaker seems flattering and cautious, but he also includes a condensing jib at death, "poor death" and a challenge "nor yet canst thou kill me." The very use of the intimate "thee" is interchanged with the polite "thou" in a respectfully intimate manner that is in keeping with the wavering emotions of the speaker. He is in turn afraid by tradition and empowered by his own logical reasoning and faith.

          Lines four though eight discuss the virtues of death, almost an attempt to pacify this young lord, who may have been angered by the speaker's slips into impudence. "From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be" is a harmless enough phrase, choking on "Much pleasure -." The speaker's anger and age old bitterness breaks though here, although it is quickly covered by the gentle sounds of the continuing line, "From thee much more must flow." The triple "m" and "uh" sounds in particular make an up-and-down, wavy, endless, seamless sound. It is with a better disguised rancor that the sentence goes on to speak of death's liberating men's souls and letting their bones come to a final rest. It only seems to the speaker as if it is the greatest people who are taken first. The line "And soonest our best men with thee do go" is the first of five in this poem beginning with the word "And." These "And"s mark where the speaker loses his tact. He gives himself confidence and keeps using his own words to fuel it, adding and adding until the speaker will be heard and understood..

          The speaker now brings forth his evidence, his specific reasons why death has none to be proud. "Thou art slave." Slave: "completely subservient to a dominating force," as defined in Webster's Dictionary. Death is not a servant, or even a captive. Death is a "slave" It is a "slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men." Each word is emphasized, separated by a pause for the comma. Each contains a "ch," "k," or "t" sound, forcing the mouth to make a complete circle of all of its sounds. Fate and chance are opposites, as are kings and desperate men. The speaker made sure that he encompassed everyone, just as he did not miss a sound. Death is a slave to all creatures and it had better know it. "S" sounds become more apparent in the sonnet from here on. They are at the same time spiteful and sleepily trusting. The next degrading line steps on and above line nine with an "And" and a cacophonic list of the unsavory company death keeps: "poison, war, and sickness." "Poppy and charms" are light, carefree, satiric, cutting words that make death's pride seem foolish, at best. After all, they can make men sleep too, and better than death.

          "Why swell'st thou then?" is a perfectly valid question, the sum of the speaker's logic. It is death's failure to answer that brings on the final declaration, starkly obvious in its deviation from the rhyme scheme and fearful tone. It is assured. "One short sleep passed, we wake eternally/ And death shall be no more." Death is, but a pause on the way to paradise, where we will all live forever. The semi-colan forces you to pause before hearing the judge's final verdict of why death has no cause to be proud, the accented last four words of unforgettable irony: "death, thou shalt die."