Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a guilty Roman.

Meaning: The saying personifies a dry cough as a trumpeter announcing death. Its severe warning makes a symptom stand for an expected outcome.

Meaning: The saying connects a green winter with a full churchyard. Its grim image associates a winter condition with increased deaths without explaining the cause.

Meaning: The timing of death cannot be treated as an appointment people can count on controlling. The calendar image expresses uncertainty about life’s duration, encouraging awareness of limits without making a prediction about any individual or demanding constant urgency.

Meaning: Death is imagined as unable to hear objections, so a protest cannot make it negotiate. The saying expresses mortality’s finality rather than a judgment about how someone should feel about loss.