Meaning of “Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I…”

De Profundis, public-domain 1913 Methuen text; the sentence appears in Wilde’s description of prison time and the apparent sameness of suffering.

De Profundis; Wilde reflects on suffering as a source of seriousness, humility, and transformed perception.

De Profundis, public-domain 1913 Methuen text; Wilde writes from prison about suffering, memory, humiliation, and the changed experience of time.

Frankenstein; the narrator reflects on the psychological strain created by sudden changes in circumstances.

Isaiah 53:3, King James Version; the line belongs to the suffering-servant passage and combines social rejection with sorrow and grief.

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III, reviewed against the scan-backed 1918 Yale text. Malcolm tells Macduff 'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak / Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.' The frozen catalog row instead reads 'knits up the o'er-wrought heart'; that substantive inherited wording variation is disclosed rather than silently rewritten. The passage remains dramatic grief counsel, not clinical guidance.