Death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

The line contrasts physical death with spiritual triumph: the subject is not “slain” in any ultimate sense, because death becomes a means of ascent rather than defeat. In Christian-inflected Renaissance poetics, this is a familiar paradox—martyrdom or virtuous dying converts mortality into a passage toward heavenly reward. The metaphor of a “ladder to the skies” evokes the idea that suffering and death can be transfigured into elevation, suggesting moral victory, sanctity, or heroic constancy. Read more broadly, it frames death as instrumental and subordinate to a higher destiny, reversing the usual power relation between death and the individual.