Sir Thomas More was beheaded because he would not swear an oath accepting King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church. As he laid his head upon the block, it is reported that he bade the executioner stay until he had removed aside his beard saying that had never committed any treason. True or not the remark reflects a characteristic side of More's personality and one which finds clear expression in Utopia. His humanist friends called it festivitas a sort of cheerful irony and playfulness in speech and demeanor stemming partly from his disposition and partly from his deep conviction that it is man's duty to live cheerfully and as far as possible delightfully. The name Utopia it self is an example. It means nowhere" (outopos) and the other proper names in the book are in the same vein. Aside from the names and the patently comic incidents (like the account of the Anemolian ambassadors or the incubation f chickens) there is an undercurrent of humor which repeatedly breaks through in a word or phrase unobtrusively and sometimes unnoticed."