The ancient Greek play “Antigone” by Sophocles warns that “no one loves the messenger who brings bad news” and “no man delights in the bearer of bad news.”
About 1,900 years later, Lewis Carroll contributed another spin on the ill-tempered response to disappointment with the Queen of Hearts in his 1865 classic Alice in Wonderland. “Off with their heads!” she would exclaim, whenever a subject provided information that displeased her.
