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The pen is mightier than the sword

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The pen is mightier than the sword is an adage coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy.[1][2] The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details... has been, though not unsparingly, indulged."[1] The Cardinal's line in Act II, scene II, was more fully:[3]

An illustration of Cardinal Richelieu holding a sword, by H. A. Ogden, 1892, from The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton

True, This! —

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,

The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold

The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —

But taking sorcery from the master-hand

To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike

The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —

States can be saved without it!

The play opened at London's Covent Garden Theater on 7 March 1839 with William Charles Macready in the lead role.[4] McGready believed its opening night sucess was "unequivocal"; Queen Victoria attended a performance on 14 March.[4]

In 1870, literary critic Edward Sherman Gould wrote that Bulwer "had the good fortune to do, what few men can hope to do: he wrote a line that is likely to live for ages."[2] By 1888, an author, Charles Sharp, feared that repeating the phrase "might sound trite and commonplace".[5] The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, which opened in 1897, has the adage decorating an interior wall.[6] Though Bulwer's phrasing was effectively a neologism at its inception, the idea of communication surpassing violence in efficacy had numerous predecessors.

Motto

The phrase appeared as the motto of gold pen manufacturer Levi Willcutt during a Railroad Jubilee in Boston, Massachusetts which ran during the week beginning 17 September 1852.[7]

It is the motto of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority. In its Latinized form, Calamvs Gladio Fortior, it is the motto of Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

Predecessors

According to the website Trivia-Library.com,[8] the book The People's Almanac, by Irving Wallace and David Wallechinsky lists several supposed predecessors to Bulwer's phrasing.

Their first example comes from the Greek playright Euripides,who died circa 406 BC. He is supposed to have written: "The tongue is mightier than the blade."[8] If the People's Almanac is correct, it should be possible to source this to an extant work by Euripides; however, the quote does appear in the 1935 fictional work Claudius the God and his Wife Messalina by Robert Graves,[9] and is thus is possibly an anachronism.

Several possible precursors do appear in the Old and New Testaments,[10] for example in the Epistle to the Hebrews, attributed to St. Barnabas, circa 95 AD. Chapter 4, verse 12 reads: "Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart."[11]

In 1529, Antonio de Guevara, in Reloj de príncipes, compares a pen to a lance, books to arms, and a life of studying to a life of war: "¡Cuánta diferencia vaya de mojar la péñola de la tinta a teñir la lanza en la sangre, y estar rodeados de libros o estar cargados de armas, de estudiar cómo cada uno ha de vivir o andar a saltear en la guerra para a su prójimo matar!"[12] Thomas North, in 1557, translated Reloj de príncipes into English as Diall of Princes.[12] The analogy would appear in again in 1582, in George Whetstone's An Heptameron of Civil Discourses: "The dashe of a Pen, is more greeuous then the counter use of a Launce."[citation needed]

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, who died in 1602 and was a personal scribe to Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (Akbar the Great), writes of a gentleman put in charge of a fiefdom having "been pro­moted from the pen to the sword and taken his place among those who join the sword to the pen, and are masters both of peace and war."[13][14] Syad Muhammad Latif, in his 1896 history of Agra, quotes King Abdullah of Bokhara (Abdulla-Khan II), who died in 1598, as saying that "He was more afraid of Abu'l-Fazl's pen than of Akbar's sword."[15]

William Shakespeare in 1600, in his play Hamlet Act 2, scene II, writes: "... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills."[8]

Robert Burton, in 1621, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, stated: "From this it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword."[8]

Thomas Jefferson, on 19 June 1792, ended a letter to Thomas Paine with: "Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword: shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man, and be assured that it has not a more sincere votary nor you a more ardent well-wisher than Y[ou]rs. &c. Thomas Jefferson"[8][16]

Netizens have suggested a 1571 edition of Erasmus's Institution of a Christian Prince contains the words "There is no sworde to bee feared more than the Learned pen"[citation needed] but this is not evident from modern translations[17] and this could be merely a spurious quotation.

Influences

The adage has been used in various forms by many writers. For example, Terry Pratchett in The Light Fantastic (1986) wrote:[18]

Quimby was eventually killed by a disgruntled poet during an experiment conducted in the palace grounds to prove the disputed accuracy of the proverb "The pen is mightier than the sword," and in his memory it was amended to include the phrase, "only if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp."

References

  1. ^ a b Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy: A Play in Five Acts (second ed.). London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit St. 1839.
  2. ^ a b Gould, Edward Sherman (1870). Good English. W.J. Widdleton. p. 63.
  3. ^ Lord Lytton (1892). The Dramatic Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton. Vol. IX. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier. p. 136.
  4. ^ a b Macready, William Charles (1875). Sir Frederick Pollock (ed.). Macready's Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters. New York: MacMillan and Co. p. 471.
  5. ^ Sharp, Charles (1888). The Sovereignty of Art. T. Fisher Unwin. p. 67.
  6. ^ Reynolds, Charles B (1897). Library of Congress and the Interior Decorations: A Practicle Guide to Visitors. p. 15. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help) Specifically, the west wall of the entrance pavillion's second floor south corridor
  7. ^ Boston (Mass.). City Council (1852). The Railroad Jubilee. An Account of the Celebration Commemorative of the Opening of Railroad Communcation Between Boston and Canada. J. E. Eastburn, city printer. p. 139.
  8. ^ a b c d e "About the history and origins behind the famous saying the pen is mightier than the sword". Trivia-Library.com. citing Wallechinsky, David, Irving Wallace (1981). The People's Almanac.
  9. ^ Graves, Robert (1935). Claudius, the God and His Wife Messalina. H. Smith and R. Haas. p. 122.
  10. ^ see also "New American Bible, Revelation Chapter 1:16 (footnote)". Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. 2002. Retrieved 13 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) Notes similar imagery also used in Revelation verses 1:16, 2:16, and 19:15; Ephesians 6:17; as well as in the Old Testament: Wisdom 18:15; and Isaiah 11:4; 49:2.
  11. ^ "New American Bible, Hebrews 4:12". Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. 2002. Retrieved 13 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ a b Di Salvo, Angelo J. (1989). "Spanish Guides to Princes and the Political Theories in Don Quijote". The Cervantes Society of America. Retrieved 12 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Beveridge, H. (1902). "The Akbarnama Of Abu-l-Fazl". Retrieved 15 November. {{cite web}}: |chapter= ignored (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ A source has Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak in Āīn-e Akbari (the third volume of the Akbarnama), quoting his master as saying to his calligraphers "Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword" but this is spurious. Source is: Ahmed, Firoz Bakht (2002-04-01). "Writing their own epitaph..." The Hindu. Retrieved 13 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Latif, Syad Muhammad (2003). Agra Historical & Descriptive with an Account of Akbar and His Court and of the Modern City of Agra, 1896. Asian Educational Services. p. 264. ISBN 8120617096.
  16. ^ Jefferson, Thomas (1792-06-19). "To Thomas Paine Philadelphia, June 19, 1792". From Revolution to Reconstruction. Retrieved 13 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ Born, Lester K. (1963). "Erasmus's Education of a Christian Prince (1516)". New York: Octagon Books. Retrieved 15 Novemeber. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ Pratchett, Terry (2000-03-01). The Light Fantastic. HarperCollins. p. 11. ISBN 0061020702. {{cite book}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
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