Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
A rhetorical question referring to an excessive amount of force that has been applied to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. The line is a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot." To "break upon a wheel" refers to a mode of torture, in which a victim has their bones broken while strapped to a large wheel. The government's use of drone strikes and artillery bombing on the town to wipe out a tiny faction of rebels is totally unjustifiable—who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
See also: break, butterfly, upon, who
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
- be breaking a butterfly on a wheel
- break a butterfly on a wheel
- make (something) out of nothing
- make out of nothing
- mere trifle
- back street
- be nothing to (one)
- be/mean nothing to somebody
- fig, not care/give/worth a