I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that … - W. S. Gilbert

You have a daughter, Captain Reese,
Ten female cousins and a niece,
A ma, if what I'm told is true,
Six sisters and an aunt or two.
Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me,
More friendly-like we all should be
If you united of them to
Unmarried members of the crew.

In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind—
He found it less exciting.

…in the first place, self decapitation is an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt; and, in the second, it’s suicide, and suicide is a capital offence.