an outburst of temper

In place of a stinger, a male bee or wasp has hardened genitalia […] used for grasping the female during mating and transferring sperm. Male genitalia are a showcase of structural plasticity.

And I am not a model clergyman—only a decent makeshift.

Even with blunted lances and filed-down or ‘rebated’ blades, grave injury and death were all too frequent, and tended to ‘disturb the cheerfulness of such events’, as a contemporary Spanish herald understatedly put it.