Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurois voir;
Par de pareils objets des âmes sont blessées,
Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées.”
Tartuffe, Acte iii. scène 2.
“Præter majorum cineres atque ossa, volucri
Carpento rapitur pinguis Damasippus et ipse,
Ipse rotam stringit multo sufflamine consul;
Nocte quidem; sed luna videt, sed sidera testes
Intendunt oculos. Finitum tempus honoris
Quum fuerit, clara Damasippus luce flagellum Sumet.”—Juvenal, Sat. viii. 146.
On the origin of Greek cock-fighting, see Ælian, Hist. Var. ii. 28. Many particulars about it are given by Athenæus. Chrysippus maintained that cock-fighting was the final cause of cocks, these birds being made by Providence in order to inspire us by the example of their courage. (Plutarch, De Repug. Stoic.) The Greeks do not, however, appear to have known “cock-throwing,” the favourite English game of throwing a stick called a “cock-stick” at cocks. It was a very ancient and very popular amusement, and was practised especially on Shrove Tuesday, and by school-boys. Sir Thomas More had been famous for his skill in it. (Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 283.) Three origins of it have been given:—1st, that in the Danish wars the Saxons failed to surprise a certain city in consequence of the crowing of cocks, and had in consequence a great hatred of that bird; 2nd, that the cocks (galli) were special representatives of Frenchmen, with whom the English were constantly at war; and 3rd, that they were connected with the denial of St. Peter. As Sir Charles Sedley said:—
“Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter's crime,
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime.”
Knight's Old England, vol. ii. p. 126.
“Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque,
Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores?
Immemor est demum nec frugum munere dignus.
Qui potuit curvi dempto modo pondere aratri
Ruricolam mactare suum.”—
Metamorph. xv. 120-124.
“Cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.”
Juvenal, Sat. vi. 7-8.