1609. Jonson, Epicœne, iii., 1. By that light you deserve to be grafted, and your horns reach from one side of the island to the other.
1616. Jonson, Devil’s an Ass, v., 5. And a cuckold is, Wherever he puts his head, with a wannion, his horns be forth, the devil’s companion.
1618. Samuel Rowlands, The Night Raven, p. 25. ’Tis this bad liver doth the horne-plague breed, Which day and night my jealous thoughts doth feed.
1623. Cockeran, Eng. Dict. s.v. Sargus, an adulterous fish which goes on the grassie shore, and hornes the hee Goates that had horns before.
1627. Drayton, Agincourt and Other Poems, p. 174. Some made mouthes at him, others as in scorne With their forkt fingers poynted him the horn.
1629. Davenant, Albovine, ed. 1673, p. 436. ’Twas a subtle reach to tell him that the King had horn’d his brow.
1633. Rowley, Match at Midnight (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiii., 40). horning the headman of his parish and taking money for his pains.
1633. Ford, Love’s Sacrifice, iii., 3. Fernando is your rival, has stolen your duchess’s heart, murther’d friendship; horns your head, and laughs at your horns.
1637. Beaumont and Fletcher, Elder Brother, iv., 4. I shall have some music yet At my making free o’ th’ company of horners.
1640. Rawlins, The Rebellion, i., I. (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 15). Fresh as a city bridegroom that has signed his wife a grant for the grafting of horns.