You may have heard of this book, an insider’s look at Trump’s chaotic White House. I have some doubts about how true all the book’s revelations are, but some of them sound convincing, like Trump going to bed at 6.30pm with a cheeseburger.

You might known that the title comes from a speech earlier this year in which Trump threatened to “unleash fire and fury” on North Korea. Fury was an interesting choice of word. You could tell that it was one of Trump’s scripted speeches, because he normally wouldn’t have the vocabulary to come up with such a word spontaneously.

I wonder if he was aware during this speech that he was making reference to Classical Greek mythology. The Furies, or Erinyes, were a group of female figures who lived in Erebus, a region of Hades, and would hear complaints brought to them by people. If the complained-about person was deemed guilty they would hound them ferociously and relentlessly as punishment.

It’s from the Furies’ famed ferocity that we get the modern English noun fury. In fairness to Trump(‘s speechwriter), despite how inappropriate and incendiary the speech threatening nuclear war was, I think it was the right word for the tone they were going for. That tone being incendiary and inappropriate.

Anyway, I’m going to hazard a guess and suggest that Trump isn’t aware of the Classical Furies. And for him, that’s probably a good thing. With Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion with Russia continuing, I’m sure a relentless agent of infernal retribution is the last thing Trump wants to think about while tucking into a cheeseburger.