Definition of "shunless"

Th' immortal Parcæ, fatal sisters three, / Of mortal men, do sing the shunless fate: / What once Was, what Is now, and what Shall Be, / Their life, their death, their fortune, and their state.

1597, R[obert] T[ofte], “Laura. The Toys of a Traveller: Or The Feast of Fancy. […]”, in Edward Arber, compiler, An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature, volume VIII, London: Archibald Constable and Co., […], published 1896, part II, stanza XXXIX, page 316

[A]lone he entred / The mortall Gate of th'Citie, which he painted / With ſhunleſſe deſtinie: […]

c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene ii], page 11, column 2

[T]he many still would cling / To toil and tears—to life and suffering; / And some, whose anguish might not brook to wait / That shunless doom, plunged headlong to their fate: […]

1853, J. Read, “[Appendix I.] Sketches Taken from Dover Castle during a Storm.”, in William Jerdan, The Autobiography of William Jerdan, […], volume III, London: Arthur Hall, [George] Virtue, & Co., […], section II (The Progress of the Storm), page 354

They oft / The sway of his red club, the shunless aim / Of his dreadful bow, and wasting tomahawk, / Had felt; […]

1857, [William Hayne Simmons], Alasco, an Indian Tale: […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co. […], canto the second, page 38

As for mine own dear life, O king, and thy most kingly head, / I tremble; since this cloud of war stout Hector rolleth o'er us / Dread-darkling; and perdition yawns with shunless gape before us.

1866, Homer, “Book XVII”, in John Stuart Blackie, transl., Homer and the Iliad, volumes III (The Iliad in English Verse, Books XIII.–XXIV.), Edinburgh: Edmondson and Douglas, page 176

O, greatest of shame! / O, shunless disgrace! / God's distress! God's distress! / Endless regret! Infinite grief! / The saddest am I among all men!

1885, Richard Wagner, translated by [anonymous], Die Walküre. (The Valkyr.) First Opera of the Rhinegold Trilogy (The “Ring of the Nibelung” Cyclus), Boston, Mass.: Oliver Ditson Company, act II, scene i, page 20, column 2

This to the shunless fardel of the world / Nerves my uncurbèd back; […]

1897, Francis Thompson, “[Miscellaneous Odes.] An Anthem of Earth.”, in New Poems, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Co., anthem, page 139

Foolishly we shun this shunless Sadness; fondly we deem of her as but huntress of men, who is tender and the bringer of tenderness to those she visits with her fearful favors.

a. 1908, Francis Thompson, “Moestitiae Encomium”, in A Renegade Poet and Other Essays, Boston, Mass.: The Ball Publishing Co., published 1910, page 301

Hero and coward enter Hades' Gate / Through the same deathless, shunless Destiny,— / Apportioned and decreed.

1914, John Jay Chapman, “Hector’s Farewell”, in Homeric Scenes: Hector’s Farewell and The Wrath of Achilles, New York, N.Y.: Laurence J. Gomme, page 12

Harden'd are we by Life: its iron pains, / Its shunless endings, do we know; […]

1919, Herbert Trench, “Battle of the Marne”, in Poems with Fables in Prose […], volume I, London: Constable and Company, stanza X, page 208

It seemed flung down before me by the genius presiding over my life's evolution, or if you will, by providential interposition at a turn of human destiny, with a secret but shunless behest to seize the unique opportunity.

1920, Denton J[acques] Snider, “Renascence Evolved”, in The St. Louis Movement in Philosophy, Literature, Education, Psychology […], St. Louis, Mo.: Sigma Publishing Co. […], part second (Renascence), page 456