English from Latin "pietas" in seven spellings: "piete", "pietie", "pietye", "pite", "pitie", "pyte", and "pytie". Early Middle English writers did not yet have words such as "sympathy" and "empathy"; and even the word "compassion" is not attested in English until the 14th century. The Mediaeval writer's notion of "pite" was thus somewhat different to the divided ideas of pity and piety in Modern English, which has also since gained connotations of disengagement (the pitier an observer to and separate from the pitied) and condescension from a superior position. The many senses of the compound notion are exemplified by how Erasmus' Enchiridion was translated in the 16th century. In the original Latin, talking about the ways of the spirit versus the ways of the flesh, Erasmus says "spiritus pios, caro impios". In translation, the single words in Latin became several phrases in English to encompass the entire range of the original concept that was by that time bifurcating as the words were bifurcating: "[T]he spiryte maketh us relygyous, obedyent to god, kynde and mercyfull. The flesshe maketh us dispysers of god, disobedyent to god, unkynde and cruell." Chaucer's line, described by Walter Skeat as being Chaucer's favourite, was understood by Edgar Finley Shannon to be a translation of Ovid's Tristia volume 3, verses 31–32, Shannon describing it as "an admirable translation and adaptation of the passage". A noble mind ("mens generosa" in Ovid, "gentil herte" in Chaucer) is easily moved ("faciles motus capit" in Ovid, "renneth soone" in Chaucer) to kindness ("plababilis irae" in Ovid "pite" in Chaucer). In the Legend, Chaucer describes women in general as "pyëtous". It wasn't until the 16th century that there was a fully-fledged split between pity and piety. In the 14th century, John Gower was, in contrast, using "pite" in his Confessio Amantis to encompass both concepts, as his Latin glosses to the text reveal, stating that "pite is the foundement of every kinges regiment". Cognates of the word include the Provençal "pietat" and the Spanish "piedad". Like Middle English, Old French took the word from the Latin and gradually split it into "pité" (later "piété") and "pitié". Italian in contrast retained the one word: "pietà", borrowed into English (through French, in the 19th century replacing its older "Vierge de pitié") as a technical concept in the arts: pietà. Literary examples Juvenal considered pity the noblest aspect of human nature. Mystic poet William Blake was