Cry “Murder”

Publication

This is the heading to His Wedded Wife in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). It is attributed by Kipling to to ‘Vibart’s Moralities’ and collected as a Chapter Heading in successive collections, including Definitive Verse and the 2013 Cambridge Edition.

Notes on the Text

‘Art thou the man ?’ Perhaps an echo of 2 Samuel 12,7: ‘Thou art the man’.

Cain murdered his brother Abel, Genesis 4, 8. See Kipling’s poem “Cain and Abel”.

Daniel Hadas adds: ‘for the idea of Cain as hunted, see Genesis 4.11-16.’ [D.H.]

[J. McG..]