[2] The work is unusual, as it is a literal illustration of a double simile from Macbeth, found in the lines: Like other members of the group, it is a monotype produced by printing from a matrix consisting of paint on gessoed millboard, with each impression then finished by hand.

[5] In fact, "pity and air", two words of Shakespeare's verses, are also two motifs used by Blake in this picture: a female cherub leans down to snatch the baby from its mother.

According to Blake's biographer Alexander Gilchrist, the print "is on a tolerably large scale, a woman bending down to succour a man stretched out at length as if given over to death.

[8] It is a personification[9] of a Christian element[10] that some critics argue was a negative virtue for Blake, since pity is associated with "the failure of inspiration and a further dividing"[11] and also "linked by alliteration and capitalization".

It is "significantly smaller than the final version of the design" and depicts the supine figure "partially covered in vegetation" in the form of sweeping fronds of long grass.