death-pillow

Updated: June 7, 2025

Prince Morinaga, wounded in several places, had resolved to make the castle his "death-pillow," when he was saved by one of those acts of heroic devotion so frequently recorded in the annals of the Japanese bushi. Murakami Yoshiteru insisted on donning the prince's armour and personating him so as to cover his retreat.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

And there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death-pillow with the black veil still swathed about his brow and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Twice Told Tales

When that mysterious time arrived, the parson snored over his half-written sermon, though it were Saturday night and no provision made for the morrow, the mother's eyelids closed as she bent over her infant, and no childish cry awakened, the watcher at the bed of mortal sickness slumbered upon the death-pillow, and the dying man anticipated his sleep of ages by one as deep and dreamless.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - An Old Woman's Tale: (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches")

Now she sips, now stirs, now sips again. Her sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva, which is mixed half and half with hot water, in the tumbler. All day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home, only when the spirit of her patient left the clay and went homeward too.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Edward Fane's Rosebud (From "Twice Told Tales")

Lady Yodo was incensed when she learned the terms that Katsumoto had offered. "I am Hideyori's mother," she is reported to have cried. "I will never bend my knee to the Kwanto. Rather will I and my son make this castle our death-pillow." Then, with Ono Harunaga, she formed a plot to kill Katsumoto and to draw the sword against the Tokugawa.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Now she sips, now stirs, now sips again. Her sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva which is mixed half and half with hot water in the tumbler. All day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home only when the spirit of her patient left the clay and went homeward too.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Twice Told Tales