Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2832 Like to a murdring peece in many places | 4.5.95 |
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1773 v1773
v1773
2832 murdring peece] Steevens (ed. 1773): “This explanation of DR. WARBURTON’S is right, and a passage in The Double Marriage of Beaumont and Fletcher will justify it: ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’ Steevens.”
1774 capn
capn
2832 peece] Capell (1774, 1:1:143): “It is probable, that, by the ‘piece’ we see mention’d at the speech’s conclusion, is meant (as the last modern tells us) a piece of many barrels, such as has been us’d by assassins in other countries.”
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773 +
2832 murdring peece] Steevens (ed. 1778): “Again, in All’s Lost by Lust, a tragedy, by Cyril Turner, 1633: ‘If thou fail’st too, the King comes with a murdering piece, In the rear.’ Again, in A Fair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1622: ‘There is not such another murdering piece In all the stock of calumny.’ Steevens.”
1783 malsii
malsii: Florio (Dialogues and Dictionary)
2832 murdring peece] Malone (1783, p. 59): “A murdering piece, I believe, means no more than an harquebuse or old-fashioned musket. In our author’s time a piece was the common term for a gun. Florio, in his Italiana Dialogues, quarto, 1591, renders—‘Tira bene de archibugio’---by ‘he shoots well in a piece;’ and in his DICTIONARY, 1598, Archubugio is defined, ‘a pistol, caliver, gun, or musket.’”
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778, malsii
1785 Mason
Mason ≈ v1773 (for Double Marriage analogue) without attribution
2832 murdring peece] Mason (1785, p.393): “I never heard that assassins were used to carry pieces with many barrels; and if they were to carry such pieces, they would not discharge all their barrels at once. By a murdering-pieceis probably meant a blunerbus, which is always charged with a great number of balls or slugs.
“The same expression occurs in the Double Marriage, where Juliana says, ‘Dear Sir, forbear; A father’s curses hit far off, and kill too; And like a murdering-piece, aim not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’
“Julian here describes the discharge of a blunderbuss.”
1787 anon ann
anon ann
2832 murdring peece] Henley (apud Editor, 1787, 6:148): “Both this passage, and the context of Shakspere shew, that the murdering piece had not many barrels, but one, very capacious; or, in other words, was, what is now styled a blunderbuss. Henley.”
1790 mWesley
mWesley: warb
2832 murdring peece] Wesley (ms. notes in v1785): “(W. defines a murdering piece as a gun with many barrels.) I think Warburton right.”
1790 mal
mal ≈ v1785 (warb, B&F), Coles
2832 murdring peece] Malone (ed. 1790): “Dr. Warburton thought that by a murdering-piece was meant ‘such a piece as assassins use, with many barrels’; and Mr. Steevens conceived, that this explanation was justified by the following passage in The Double Marriage of B. and Fletcher: ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’ But Dr. Warburton was certainly mistaken. A murdering-piece was the specifick term in Shakspeare’s time, for a piece of ordnance, or small cannon. The word is found in Coles’s Latin Dictionary, 1679, and rendered, ‘tormentum murale.’
“The small cannon, which are, or were, used in the forecastle, half-deck, or steerage of a ship of war, were within this century called murdering-pieces. Malone.”
1791- rann
rann
2832 murdring peece] Rann (ed. 1791-): “The allusion is probably to a blunderbuss loaded with slugs.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = v1785, mal (from “A murdering-piece was” to “called murdering-pieces.”) +
2832 murdring peece] Steevens (ed. 1793): “It appears from a passage in Smith’ Sea Grammar, 1627, that it was a piece of ordnance used in ships of war: ‘A case-shop is any kinde of small bullets, nailes, old iron, or the like, to put into the case, to shoot out of the ordnances or murderers; these will doe much mischiefe,’ etc. Steevens.”
v1793: Roes analogue
2832 murdring peece] Ritson (apud ed. 1793): “Perhaps what is now, from the manner of it, called a swivel. It is mentioned in Sir T. Roes Voiage to the E. Indies, at the end of Della Valle’s Travels, 1665: ‘—the East India company had a very little pinnace . . . mann’d she was with ten men, and had only one small murdering-piece within her.’ Probably it was never charged with a single ball, but always with shot, pieces of old iron, &c. Ritson.”
Ritson note added after mal
1819 cald1
cald1 ≈ mal (B&F analogue)
2832 murdring peece] Steevens (apud Caldecott in ed. 1819): “‘A case-shot is any kinde of small bullets, nailes, old iron, or the like, to put into the case, to shoot out of the ordnances or murderers.’ Smith’s Sea Grammar, 1627. ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’ B. and Fl. Double Marriage. Steevens.”
cald1 ≈ Ritson
2832 murdring peece] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Mr. Ritson cites Sir T. Roe’s Voiage to the E. Indies, at the end of Della Valle’s Travels, 1665: ‘—the East India company had a very little pinnace . . . mann’d she was with ten men, and had only one small murdering-piece within her.’ Probably it was never charged with a single ball, but always with shot, pieces of old iron. &c.”
Johnson and Ritson are recognized in separate notes; Steevens is simply cited and attribution is formally made.
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 +
2832 murdring peece] Malone (apud ed. 1821): “So, in Smith’s History of New England, fol. 1630, b. vi. p. 223: ‘Strange they thought it, that a barke of threescore tunnes with foure guns should stand on such termes, they being eighteen expert sea-men in an excellent ship of one hundred and fortie tuns, and thirty-six cast pieces, and murderers.’”
Smith reference is interpolated before Cole def. Steevens had referred to this work in v1793.
1822 Nares
Nares: Rabelais; DuChat, Kersey; B&F, Middleton, Saltonstall’s Mayde analogues
2832 murdring peece] Nares (1822, glossary, murdering piece): “A very destructive kind of ordnance, calculated to do much execution at once, having a wide mouth, and discharging large stones. In Rabelais, B. ii. ch. 1 Canon pevier is translated by Sir. T. Urquhart, ‘murdering piece.’ Now pevier, says Du Chat, ‘is synonymous with perrier, or pierrier, more modern terms; that is, pieces for discharging great stones. The stones would often break into many fragments by the explosion, and consequently murder many places, as Hamlet says.’ Du Chat adds, that it is the [Greek here] of the Greek. He forgot that they had no cannons; but it shows his meaning sufficiently. They had engines which threw stones with almost equal force. [Hamlet lines cited] ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all who stand within that dang’rous level.’ B. &Fl. Double Marriage, iv.2. ‘There is not such another murdering piece In all the stock of calumny.’ Middleton & Rowl. Fair Quarrel, 1622. In Middleton’s Game of Chess, brass guns are called merely ‘brass murtherers.’ H 2 b. But this is merely a poetical phrase. Kersey defines murderers, or murdering pieces, ‘Small cannon, chiefly used in the fore-castle, half-deck, or steering of a ship;’ and there they were used, but not exclusively; ‘And like some murdering peece, instead of shot, Disperses shame on more than her alone.’ Saltonstall’s Mayde, p.4.”
1826 sing1
sing1 ≈ v1773 (B&F analaogue) without attribution; Cotgrave
2832 murdring peece] Singer (ed. 1826): “A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artillery; in French meurtrière. It took its name from the loop-holes and embrasures in towers and fortifications, which were so called. The portholes in the forecastle of a ship were also thus denominated. ‘Meurtriere, c’est un petit canonniere, comme celles des tours et murailles, ainsi appellé, parceque tirant par icelle a desceu, ceux ausquels on tire sont facilement meurtri.’—Nicot. ‘Visiere meurtriere, a port-hole for a murthering-piece in the forcastle of a ship.—Cotgrave. Case shot, filled with small bullets, nails, old iron, &c. was often used in these murderers. This accounts for the raking fire attributed to them in the text, and in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Double Marriage: ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1 minus “Probably . . . &c.”)
1841 knt1 (nd)
knt1: standard
2832 murdring peece] Knight (ed. [1839] nd): “a cannon was so called.”
1854 del2
del2
2832 murdring peece] Delius (ed. 1854): “murdering piece, auch murderer genannt, bezeichnet eine besondere Art von Geschütz das viele Stücke zugleich versandte, also mit einem Schuss vielfachen Tod verbreitete.” [murdering piece or murderer refers to a particular type of weapon that fired several fragments at the same time, thus killing many with one shot.]
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1: sing1 minus etymology, B&F // without attribution
2832 murdring-piece HUDSON (ed. 1851-6): “A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a piece of artillery. ‘Visiere meurtriere, a port-hole for a murthering-piece in the forecastle of a ship.’—Cotgrave. Case shot, filled with small bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murderers. This accounts for the raking fire attributed to them in the text.”
1857 fieb
fieb ≈ v1793 (Malone)
2832-3 Like . . . death] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “We say equal to, but like a murdering piece.—A murdering piece was the specific term in Shakespeare’s time for a piece of ordnance, or small cannon, used in the forecastle, half-deck, or steerage of a ship of war. The word is found in Cole’s Latin Dictionary, 1679, and rendered, ‘tormentum murale.’ Probably it was never charged with a single ball, but always with any kind of small bullets, nails, pieces of old iron, or the like; whence it wounded in many places, and gave superfluous death, i.e. more than enough.”
1860 stau
stau ≈ fieb (abbreviated)
2832 murdring peece] Staunton (ed. 1860): “A piece of artillery with several barrels, which discharged a hail of missiles composed of bullets, nails, old iron, and the like.”
1861 wh2
wh2 ≈ knt1
2832 murdring peece] WHITE (ed. 1861): “There was a kind of cannon called a murdering piece.”
1870 rug1
rug1
2832 a murdring peece] Moberly (ed. 1870): “A rude mitrailleuse of the day, the pévier or perrier which discharged stones so that they shattered into many fragments.”
1872 hud2
hud2 = hud1 for murdring peece minus Cotgrave
1872 cln1
cln1 ≈ cald1 (Steevens’s B&F analogue), sing1 (Cotgrave)
2832 murdring peece] Clark and Wright (ed. 1872): “or ‘murderer,’ is a cannon loaded not with a single ball, but with case-shot, so as to scatter death more widely. Steevens quotes Beaumont and Fletcher’s Double Marriage [iv. 2]: ‘And, like a murdering piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’ He also quotes Smith’s Sea Grammar, 1627: ‘A case shot is any kind of small bullets, nailes, old iron, or the like, to put into the case, to shoot out of the ordnances or murderers.’ Cotgrave gives ‘murthering peece’ as equivalent to the French meurtriere.”
1877 v1877
v1877 ≈ v1773, sing1, Dyce (Glossary)
2832 murdring peece]
Furness (ed. 1877): “
Steevens: ‘A case shot is any kinde of small bullets, nailes, old iron, or the like, to pt into the case, to shoot out of the ordinances or murderers; these will doe much mischief.’—Smith’s Sea Grammar, 1627. This, is Beau. & Fl. The Double Marriage, 4.2.6: ‘A father’s curses . . . like a murdering-piece, aim not at one, But all that stand withing the dangerous level.’ Singer: A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artillery; in Fr.
meurtrière, which took its name from the loop-holes and embrasures in towers and fortifications, that were so called. ‘
Meurtriere, c’est un petit canonniere, comme celles des tours et murailles, ainsi appellé, parceque tirant par icelle a desceu, ceux ausquels on tire sont facilement meurtri.’—Nicot. ‘
Visiere meurtriere, a port-hole for a murthering Piece in the forcastle of a ship.—Cotgrave.
Dyce (Gloss.): ‘Murdering-pieces,’ if we may trust Coles, were not always ‘small,’ for he gives ‘A murdering-piece.
Tormentum murale,’ and afterwards ‘Tormentum murale,
a great gun.’—
Lat. and Eng. Dict.”
1877 neil
neil ≈ sing2 (etym./def.) on murdring peece
1878 rlf1
rlf1: v1793 (Smith), rug
2832 a murdring peece] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “A cannon loaded with case-shot. Steevens quotes Smith’s Sea Grammar, 1627: ‘A case shot is any kinde of small bullets, nailes, old iron, or the like, to put into the case, and shoot out of the ordinances [see H5 p. 161] or murderers.’ M. defines it as ‘a rude mitrailleuse of the day, the pévier or perrier, which discharged stones so that they shattered into many fragments.’”
1881 hud3
hud3 = hud2 for murdring peece
1883 wh2
wh2 ≈ stau
2832 murdring peece] White (ed. 1883): “a kind of cannon which was loaded with many balls or other missiles.”
1885 macd
macd” standard + magenta underlined
2832 murdring peece] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—the name given to a certain small cannon—perhaps charged with various missiles, hence the better figuring the number and variety of ‘sorrows’ he has just recounted.”
1889 Barnett
Barnett ≈ wh2
2832 murdring peece] Barnett (1889, p. 56): “a cannon loaded with grape-shot.”
1890 irv2
irv2 ≈ sing1 (incl. B&F analogue; Nicot, Cotgrave
2832 murdring peece] Symons (Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Murdering-piece is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in The Double Marriage 4.2.6, 7: ‘like a murdering-piece, aim not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’ It is the same thing as a ‘murderer’ or meurtrère, which Nicot defines as ‘un petit cannoniere comme celles des tours et murailles, ainsi appellé, parceque tirant par icelle a desceu, ceux ausquels on tire sont facilement meurtri’ (quoted by Singer). Cotgrave has ‘Meurtriere: f. A murthering piece;’ and again, ‘Visiere meurtrière, a port-hole for a murthering Peece is the forecastle of a ship.’”
1891 dtn
dtn: xref.
2832 murdring peece] Deighton (ed. 1891): “or murderer, was a cannon which discharged case-shot, i.e. shot confined in a case which burst in the discharge and scattered the shot widely; hence the superfluous death [2833] in the next line, any one of the missiles being sufficient to cause death.”
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ v1773 (B&F analogue)
2832 murdring peece] Dowden (ed. 1899): “a cannon loaded with case-shot (small projectiles put up in cases). Steevens quotes Beaumont and Fletcher, The Double marriage 4.2: ‘A father’s curses . . . like a murdering-piece aim not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’”
1903 p&c
p&c ≈ sing (incl. B&F analogue)
2832 murdring peece] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “Singer explains that a murdering-piece was the French meurtrière, a small piece of artillery, named from the loopholes in towers when it was fired: ‘like a murdering piece aim not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level’ (Beaumont and Fletcher, ‘The Double Marriage,’ 4.2.6).”
1903 rlf3
rlf3 = rlf1 minus rug
1906 nlsn
nlsn ≈ Barrett
2832 murdring peece] Neilson (ed. 1906, glossary): “a kind of cannon, sometimes loaded with case- or grape-shot.”
1931 crg1
crg1 ≈ nlsn
2832 murdring peece] Craig (ed. 1931): “small cannon or mortar; suggestion of numerous missiles fired.”
1934 rid1
rid1
2832 murdring peece] Ridley (ed. 1934): “small cannon firing canister.”
1939 kit2
kit2: Chapman analogue; v1773 (Fletcher analogue)
2832 a murdring peece] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “a kind of mortar loaded with a variety of missiles and intended to scatter its shot; also called a murderer. Cf. Chapman, Bussy d’Ambois, iii (Pearson ed., II, 59): ‘like a murthering peece, making lanes in armies.’ Steevens quotes Fletcher, The Double Marriage 4.2.5-7: ‘A father’s curses hit far off, and kill too; And, like a murdering piece, aim not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’”
1942 n&h
n&h ≈ nlsn
2832 murdring peece] Neilson & Hill (ed. 1942): “cannon which shoots a kind of shrapnel.”
1957 pel1
pel1 ≈ n&h
2832 murdring piece] Farnham (ed. 1957): “cannon loaded with shot meant to scatter.”
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ pel1
2832 murdring peece] Evans (ed. 1974): “cannon firing a scattering charge.”
1980 pen2
pen2 ≈ evns1
2832 murdring peece] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(mortar or cannon which scattered a variety of lethal small shot and pieces of metal instead of a single shot).”
1982 ard2
ard2 ≈ v1773 (B&F analogue)
2832 a murdring-piece] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “a kind of cannon (also called a ‘murderer’) which by the scatter of its case-shot could hit many men at once. Cf. Fletcher, Double Marriage, iv.ii.6, ‘like a murdering-piece, aims not at one, But all that stand within the dangerous level.’”
1984 chal
chal ≈ evns1
2832 murdring peece] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “a small cannon, capable of scattering its shot.”
1988 bev2
bev2 ≈ n&h
2832 murdring peece] Bevington (ed. 1988): “cannon loaded so as to scatter its shot.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: Massinger analogue; Jenkins, Fletcher
2832 murdering-piece] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “a small cannon capable of delivering several shots at once. Jenkins cites Fletcher and Massinger’s Double Marriage (1620): ’like a murdering-piece, aims not at once, / But all that stand within the dangerous level’ (4.2.6).”
2832