Some ancient poet said that important ideas are conveyed by "words with wings". In a recent overview of "labor" and "labor pains" we found many tangled illustrative "winged words". Some of these "winged words" landed on Eve, which we did not explore and others settled on ART (assisted reproductive technologies) which illuminated how affluent couples, purchasing parenthood alternatives, could escape "labor pains". Further exploration of ART, showed that the pain spared to couples could resurface and hurt the "offspring". It became obvious that the ART horizon is clouded by money, painfully high prematurity rates and with sorrows arising from clouded origins of those so conceived, often entangled with sperm sellers, egg sellers, womb renters and ART suppliers.

Saint Mary experienced the pains of labor .

These flocks of "Winged words" also lifted us away from labor pain, delivery, birth toward patience, patient, penalty, horrible, abhorrent ... apart, part, partus, parturition, pattern, paternity ... tear, torn and lacrimal ...

Not all pain is physical .

Here we focus on pain, which is "poros" or misfortune or penury. These are seen by Biblical theologians as God's penalty. Pain implies suffering or "pati", which in medicine is considered incom"pati"ble with health or pathologic, thus undesirable. However, in a more general sense, pathos stands for "that which can engender feelings" or in medicine for awareness or symptoms. Inability to feel pain or being indolent, as some criminals seem to be, is also pathological. However pathos is essential to the "will to live". It is also the core element in fine arts. Feelings are the raw materials for the psyche to consolidate as "self", into empathy and perhaps ethics. Rare is a dog that lacks empathy for his owner. Perhaps, like the Dominicans, who serve God with a "dog like" devotion, physicians who aspire to be clinicians, should extend "dog like" empathy toward their patients. Relatedly, aspiring clinicians should consider seeking exposure to fine arts as a tonic to refine their sensitivity and remedy whatever indolence they may possess. Feeling the pain of others is the essence of ethics in general and in medical ethics in particular. Failures of medical empathy may be at the root of the increasing visits to clinicians by Nemesis, the emblem of retribution. The source are alienated patients often heartened by lawyers versed in how to induce contortions by applications of tort law. As the attendant of Nemesis, Poena, extracts increasingly heavier medical malpractice penalties from a growing number of physicians who must forgo their anodyne or painless life styles.

The ancients rarely depicted pain and ugliness. Shown here is Hypnos or his identical twin Thanatos. The wing of sleep, often reversible but eventually permanent, is often the ultimate refuge from pain.

From here, "winged words" took us to "Primum non nocere" or "First, do no harm" which is at the core of medical ethics. We also found "harm" and "hore" and "horit", which in Ukrainian, denote "hurt" and link with abhorrent grief, sorrow and horror.

Prometheus gave humanity the"sacred fire" and perhaps led humanity towards atomic energy. For this he was condemned to contort under the pain of torture.

Eve gave Adam access to knowledge and since then, Humanity is bound by passions and wars.