By Martin H. Levinson
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
—From the play Richelieu;
Or the Conspiracy
by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Cardinal Richelieu fictitiously said the pen is
mightier than the sword which makes me
wonder if that noble cleric ever received a
serious wound from a blade that punctured his
skin and caused profuse pain as the object of
his disaffection sliced through muscles, organs
and epithelial tissue giving great distress to a
royal corpus that will someday enter heaven
if it does good works though countless clergy
say works are useless for getting into heaven and
atheists say there is no heaven, which means if
they are right that the Cardinal will simply decay
over time once he perishes from his stab wound if
that laceration is a lethal one and not just an injury
that will spurt blood all over his eminence’s
handsome red ecclesiastical robes and throb like
a mouthful of infected rotting teeth for droves of
dolorous days and numerous nightmarish nights
and lead him to cry out at the top of his
First Minister’s lungs I was wrong!
To get one’s point across the sword,
which can cut you to the quick
and leave you dead or real sick, is
far superior to any writing instrument.
