Hamlet, when at the point of death, exclaims:—
"O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit!"
He means that the poison triumphs over him, as a victorious cock over his beaten antagonist.
In the Taming of the Shrew (ii. 1. 228), Katharina says to Petruchio, "You crow too like a craven." This word craven, which meant a base coward, was often applied to a vanquished knight who had not fought bravely, and hence came to be used with reference to a beaten or cowardly cock, as it is in this passage.
Another popular diversion, especially among the boys, was "throwing at cocks," in which the bird was tied to a stake and sticks thrown at it until it was killed. This sport, which dates back to the 14th century, and which was not uncommon in England less than a hundred years ago, is said to have been peculiar to that country.
Sir Thomas More, writing in the 16th century, tells of his own skill in his childhood in casting a "cock-stele," that is, a stick or cudgel to throw at a cock. The amusement was regularly practised on Shrove Tuesday.
In some places the cock was put into an earthen vessel made for the purpose, with only his head and tail exposed to view. The vessel was then suspended across the street twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, to be thrown at. The boy who broke the pot and freed the cock from his confinement had him for a reward.
According to a popular superstition of Shakespeare's day, the cock was supposed to be a kind of devil's messenger, from his crowing after Peter's denial of his Master. Clergymen sometimes made this an excuse for their enjoyment in cock-throwing.
Shakespeare makes no reference to this vulgar prejudice against the cock. On the contrary, in a very beautiful passage in Hamlet (i. 1. 158), he associates the bird with the joy and hope of Christmas:—