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Punishment for cursing or disparaging a clergyman was having a bodkin — a large needle — driven through the tongue.

In fact, that “serpent of old Nile” — Shakespeare’s phrase — probably used Egyptian cobra venom, possibly secreted in a hollow bodkin that she carried wound in her hair.

"Whom would fardels bear under such a weary and long life.... when he could his quietus make with a bare bodkin?"

However, we atheists should not relent, but press our advantage, and remain ready at all times to slip the bodkin of reason into the still-beating heart of faith and twist it vigorously.

We are told by Fathers, that Herodias stabbed the head with a bodkin when she got it into her hand, and here are the marks of such an operation visible.