Shirley, James -- Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles’s Armour, sc. 3, st. 1 (1659)

Dave — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:49:52 +0000

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Scepter and crown
Must tumble down,
And, in the dust, be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

James Shirley (1596–1666) English poet, playwright
Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles’s Armour, sc. 3, st. 1 (1659)
(Source)

Sung by Calchas over the body of Ajax.

The poem was eventually set to music by Edward Coleman. It was said to be a favorite of England's King Charles II, perhaps because it was said by some to have terrified Oliver Cromwell.

Titled as "Death's Final Conquest" in Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Book 3, No. 2 (1885). There the first line is given as "birth and state."

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Latin proverb

Dave — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:38:40 +0000

Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat.

[Death equalizes the scepter and the spade.]

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Latin proverb

Widely used over the centuries in sermons, religious writings, and inscriptions regarding death and the vanity of worldly rank and honors. Citations I found go back at least to the 16th Century, with use peaking, then tailing off in the 19th Century.

While attributed in various places, without citation, to Lucan, Lucian, or Horace, it does not appear to be actually from any of those writers.

Alternate translations / renderings:

Death maketh sceptres and mattocks equal, and as soon arresteth he the prince that carrieth the sceptre, as the poor man that diggeth with the mattock.
[tr. Grindal (1564)]

Scepter and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
[tr. Shirley (1654)]

Death mingles scepters with spades.
[tr. Henry (1806)]

Death is the head of the leveling party.
[tr. Cawdry (1869)]

In death there is no difference betwixt the king and the beggar.
[tr. Cawdry (1869)]

In death there is no difference made
Between the sceptre and the spade.
[Inverness tombstone of Samuel Urquhart (1700); see Swift, below]

In Death, no Difference is made,
Betweene the Sceptre, and the Spade.
[Inverness tombstone of John Cutherbert of Drakes (1711)]

Death makes sceptres and hoes equal.
[tr. Aavitsland (2012)]

Death makes scepters equal with hoes.
[tr. Stone (2013)]

Variants:

Mors dominos servis et sceptra ligonibus æquat,
Dissimiles simili condicione trahens.

[Death comes alike to monarch, lord, and slave,
And levels all distinctions in the grave.]

[Hall (1909), from Colman (c. 1633)]

Ah! who, in our degenerate days,
As nature prompts, his offering pays?
Here nature never difference made
Between the sceptre and the spade.
[Swift (1730), regarding the goddess of the sewer, Cloacina]

WIST Quotations

Shirley, James -- Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles’s Armour, sc. 3, st. 1 (1659)

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Latin proverb