Liber Martis - Chapter 39

Verses

The knife entered the room before the healer, yet no one called it evil.

Steel has no doctrine. The hand supplies the scripture.

One blade opens a throat; another opens a body so death may be turned away.

Blood cannot tell whether it was spilled by murderer, midwife, butcher, or surgeon.

Therefore do not judge Mars by redness alone.

To cut is sometimes to separate poison from flesh, falsehood from thought, attachment from love.

The fool says, Never cut. The cruel man says, Cut everything. Wisdom asks what must remain joined.

A boundary can protect a wound while it heals.

Anger is useful as a scalpel and disastrous as weather.

The surgeon does not hate the tumor. Hatred would make the hand less precise.

Likewise, remove what must be removed without inventing a demon merely to steady your courage.

The cleanest victory leaves as little unnecessary damage as possible.

There are wars inside every body, but health is not the celebration of battle.

When you finally turn the blade inward, cut only the knot that says you are the blade.