Literary notes about Assuage (AI summary)
Writers often deploy "assuage" as a versatile verb to denote the easing or relief of various discomforts, whether emotional or physical. In literature, the term not only captures the quieting of intense feelings such as grief, anger, and sorrow [1][2], but it also finds application in mitigating physical pains and needs—from cooling fevers and stanching burns [3][4] to quenching hunger and thirst [5][6]. Moreover, "assuage" serves as a metaphorical bridge linking abstract emotional states with tangible relief, as seen when characters seek consolation from life’s burdens or even nature itself—whether it is the softening of a tempestuous soul or the alleviation of a burning wrath [7][8]. This layered usage has enabled authors across eras, from Shakespeare to Thoreau, to enrich their narratives with a term that encapsulates both the balm for human suffering and the restoration of inner calm [9][10].
- And now that I would fain assuage my grief By gazing on her portrait here before me, Tears of despairing love obscure my sight.
— from Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala by Kalidasa - I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - Secondly, To restrain and assuage the heat of the bowels, and to cool the blood in fevers.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - [Pg 707] Here she busied herself with salves and lotions to assuage the scald of the girl's fresh burns, which were more painful than serious.
— from The Pirate Woman by Aylward Edward Dingle - “Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - When you are alone the fire will assuage.
— from A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics by Richard Baxter - No more shall gladden our domestic hearth; That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow— Better than words—no more assuage our woe.
— from Books and AuthorsCurious Facts and Characteristic Sketches by Anonymous - the ocean’s rage No cries of grief could even assuage.
— from The Poetry of Wales - The good gods assuage thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here; this, who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - But history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend an azure tint to them.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
