22 pages • 44 minutes read
A Litany in Time of Plague
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Themes
Inevitability of Death
The principle theme of Nashe’s “A Litany in Time of Plague” is that death and suffering are inevitable. The speaker’s constant refrain throughout each stanza sees them despair of sickness and lament that they “must die” (Line 6), as though death were the only conclusion to disease. Other language surrounding death in the poem is similarly fatalistic. Death is described as a “fate” (Line 24) that cannot be fought against with swords and a “destiny” (Line 37) to be welcomed and accepted. Similarly, while describing the inefficacy of medicine against the plague, the speaker asserts, “All things to end are made” (Line 11). In each moment of the poem, the speaker is singularly focused on a fated, inescapable end to “earth’s bliss” (Line 1) and their time on Earth.
The Futility of Resisting Death
Since death is the inevitable fate of all human beings, all attempts to resist that fate are futile and foolish. The speaker demonstrates this futility by depicting the various coping methods and forms of resistance people use to combat death. First, the speaker depicts the rich who, for all their wealth and access to medicine, “cannot buy” (Line 9) or guarantee their physical health. Second, the speaker describes the “young and fair” (Line 18) who are glamorous for only a short while but whose beauty cannot withstand the effects of time and aging. The speaker thirdly addresses warriors and strong men who defeat their foes but cannot fight against their fate (Line 24), and finally, the speaker considers intellectuals. There is no “wit” (Line 29) or ingenuity that can outsmart or dissuade Death from doing as he pleases, for he “hath no ears for to hear” (Line 32). Nothing humans obtain, whether medicine, youthful beauty and vitality, physical strength and military prowess, or wit can do anything to stop Death’s “darts” (Line 5) from hitting their mark.
Piety in the Face of Death
In the popular Protestant religion of Nashe’s Elizabethan era, the dominant perspective on death was that it was an experience to be embraced, not avoided. Both Catholics and Protestants believed that a person’s final words and actions, whether good or bad, were an indication of their soul’s final resting place. If an individual felt little pain and praised God upon their death bed, then that person’s salvation was assumed. Conversely, if a person experienced agony and could not speak or impart any wisdom while dying, people feared the fate of that person’s soul. The manner of a person’s death became very important for how other people perceived their faith, and the death bed was often considered the most pivotal moment in a believer’s life, as their actions in that moment could determine the trajectory and fate of their eternal soul.
As the precursor to living in Heaven alongside God, death was to be dismissed as insignificant compared to eternal bliss and even to be eagerly embraced in anticipation of greater things. In one of his epistles, the apostle Paul asserts of himself and his fellow believers, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 KJV). Paul’s confident dismissal and euphemism of death as only a state of being “absent” from the body while the soul is present with the Lord was the ideal example of faith to which all Protestant believers looked. While Nashe’s speaker struggles with despair at their own looming death for much of the poem’s duration, the final stanza sees the speaker adopt a piety and faith like Paul’s in his final moments. Like Paul, the speaker euphemizes death, regarding it as a necessary step on the way to Heaven their “heritage” (Line 38) and disregards life as an act on a “player’s stage” (Line 39). As death approaches, the speaker musters the proper Protestant faith and piously acknowledges that eternal life is the only true existence and life on earth merely an acted mimicry of it. Therefore, the speaker should not hesitate to leave this earthly life and should be “willing” like Paul “to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
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