I have come across this expression recently, and I broadly understood its figurative meaning from the context: slowly eroding away someone's strength or resilience until they crack. It is applied both to people and to institutions. But where does the expression come from? Is there a literal "death by a thousand cuts"?
Thanks

Marianna

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

Ken of darkness, forged in flame-
Bred of demons, wracked by shame,
Purged in crimson blood, desire...
Led with malice, gorged in fire.

Crimson ribbons, wreathed in light,
Dancing flickers, fraught with spite,
Silence rent, in unvoiced screams.
Shadows lost in torch-lit dreams.

Rank, in bloodless Godhood, flayed,
Crest, in crimson sheets, are laid,
Swathed in robes of blood-slick stain,
Stillness echoes through my pain.

Miasmic vision yields to lust,
Describing symmetries like dust-
Ribbons float, adrift in space.
Fading in the fears I face.

So far away, afar afield,
Far beyond the bodies' yield-
Flight from pains I cannot feel,
As abstract agonies anneal.

Uncounted times, a game with death,
Thoughtless distant, pain-drawn breath.
Countless years, and light-years past,
Wagers, never lost, are cast.

Homewards journey, home so near-
Sky familiar, stars so dear.
Constellations, mind-made; real,
Matters not for how I feel.

Home. Oh God, I'm home again-
A blade, of silver, lances pain.
A hundred years of repetition,
Sword strike, paper wound; Blood Glisten.

Agony, and without dreaming,
In a web of hurt, I'm screaming.
Crimson ribbon, sword-tip fleeing-
Back again to wound: past feeling...

Belkrost Anakar

In a web of hurt, I scream.

Pheww! After that one, Jackie, I feel like I'm "in a web of hurt!" I wonder what the URL for that one would look like!?

Ken of darkness, forged in flame-
Bred of demons, wracked by shame,
Purged in crimson blood, desire...
Led with malice, gorged in fire.



A glass half-empty kinda gal, are ya, Jackie?

Ahem, Max; I did not write it. I have never heard of that guy. He does write powerfully, doesn't he?

Whit., I didn't put the URL because it would have been way
too long. I typed death by a thousand cuts into the
Askjeeves search window, and got some very strange findings, and this one as well. Somehow the URL's for anything I find through Askjeeves always include a bunch of things that belong to Askjeeves as well as the destination site. When I've copied them, even into e-mail, they can come out four lines' worth, all the way across the screen!
And they don't always work when I then try to access them, either. But now you know how to get there, if you want. Go to Askjeeves.com.

Whit., I didn't put the URL because it would have been way too long


jackie, dear jackie ~~ i'm surprised!! you knew right off the bat that Maxilla was funning about the contusion, yet you took whit's joke to heart. methinks he was speaking not of the URL that you could've provided, but rather of the fictional URL for a "web of hurt".

My understanding is that this was the ultimate penalty, imposed for treason against the Emperor, in the old Chinese judicial system, which had a series of graduated penalties for various offenses (also ranked in order of their seriousness), ranging from garrotting to quartering to the 1000 cuts, which was to be sliced, cut and sawed gradually into small pieces. Part of the penalty, besides the slow agonizing process was that the body was not intact, which meant that the victim could not enjoy a future life. Hence, beheading, while quicker and less painful than garotting, was a heavier penalty. Info on the judicial system, which is fascinating, is plentiful in the Judge Dee novels and stories of Robert van Gulik.

which was to be sliced, cut and sawed gradually into small pieces.

Between the poem (although great imagery) and the above : NIGHTMARES !
I may not go to bed for a week.

wow

NIGHTMARES!

You're right on the money, wow! I just mailed Jackie a private that "1,000 Cuts" was the last thing I read before turning in last night...and I woke up deep into the darkness with terrible nightmares! Nightmares that I can only describe as the "I have no mouth and I must scream!" variety. That's one intense and distrubing poem!

And, yes bridget96, I was implying that the URL would be as strange and creepy as the poem.