Brewer's: Pilate Voice

A loud ranting voice. In the old mysteries all tyrants were made to speak in a rough ranting manner. Thus Bottom the Weaver, after a rant “to show his quality,” exclaims, “That's 'Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein;” and Hamlet describes a ranting actor as “out-heroding Herod.”

In Pilate voys he gan to cry, And swor by armës, and by blood and bones.

Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, 3126.

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