“It is an old saying, ‘A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword,’ and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever.”, Robert Burton cites this traditional proverb in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) Part I, Section II, Member IV, Subsection IV