A soldier is fighting an unequal battle against death, trying to hold him off with a sword. Meanwhile his death simply strikes him with a bone, while another death leads a company of soldiers into battle and to their doom. The bodies of his companions who have already fallen lie scattered on the ground.
I find this illustration to be one of the better vignettes in Holbein's the dance of death. The fight by this soldier is also an allegory of our universal and ultimately losing battle for life. We are all this soldier in a sense.
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Holbein - the Dance of Death.
