COCK:
Domestic variation of the Bankiva Cock Gallus gallus, Coq Bankiva.
31 occurrences as chicken (22 cock, 3 cocks, 1 Cock, 1 Cock's, 1 cock-a-hoop, 1 cock-shut, 2 chanticleer)
TMP 1 2 388 The strain of strutting chanticleer.
TMP 1 2 389 Cry - Cock a diddle dow.
TMP 2 1 29 p The old cock.
TGV 2 1 25 p when you laughed, to crow like a cock;
WIV 1 1 303 p By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir.
MND 2 1 267 And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
AYL 2 7 30 My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
AYL 2 7 91 Of what kind should this cock come of?
SHR 2 1 224 A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
SHR 2 1 225 No cock of mine. You crow too like a craven.
SHR 4 1 106 p - Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.
1H4 2 1 18 p since the first cock.
2H4 5 1 1 By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away tonight.
H5 2 1 52 For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up
H5 4 ch 15 The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
R3 5 3 210 Ratcliffe, my lord, 'tis I. The early village cock
ROM 1 5 80 You will set cock-a-hoop, you'll be the man!
ROM 4 4 3 Come, stir, stir, stir, the second cock hath crow'd!
TIM 2 2 166 I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock
MAC 2 3 24 p Faith, Sir, we were carousing till the second cock;
HAM 1 1 152 It was about to speak when the cock crew.
HAM 1 1 155 The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
HAM 1 1 162 It faded on the crowing of the cock.
HAM 1 2 218 But even then the morning cock crew loud,
HAM 4 5 61 By Cock? they are to blame.
LR 3 2 3 Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
LR 3 4 112 p he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock;
ANT 2 3 35 His cocks do win the battle still of mine
CYM 2 1 21 p and I must go up and down like a cock,
CYM 2 1 23 p You are cock and capon too,
CYM 2 1 24 p and you crow, cock, with your comb on.
NB: cock'rel, hen, chick, chicken, etc ... are not listed here, being too general and beyond the scope of this study.
The cock, "the trumpet of the morn" (HAM 1 1 155) gave its rhythm to the rural life of the time. In Richard III, before the battle of Bosworth field, the atmosphere of the approach of the battle is rendered by numerous references to time, directly, or by using the cock or the lark:
KING RICHARD
What is't o'clock?
CATESBY
It's supper time, my lord: it's nine o'clock.
KING RICHARD
I will not sup tonight. Give me some ink and paper.
What, is my beaver easier than it was,
And all my armour laid into my tent?
[...]
KING RICHARD
Stir with the lark tomorrow, gentle Norfolk.
NORFOLK
I warrant you, my lord.
[see LARK] [...]
RATCLIFFE
Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,
Much about cockshut time, from troop to troop
Went through the army cheering up the soldiers.
(5 3 48-52[...]57-8[...]70-2, emphasis added)
Also before Agincourt:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
(H5 4 ch 15)
The cock was sometimes called "chanticleer", a traditional name from the medieval fables. Agnes LATHAM, editor of the Arden As You Like It refers to the story of Reynard the Fox and to Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale.
The expression "cock-a-hoop" means, according to Brian GIBBONS, editor of the Arden Romeo and Juliet, to
abandon all restraint (with a subsidiary sense 'have things your own way'); OED calls it 'of doubtful origin', noting associations with the boastfulness of a fighting (or crowing) cock, and with unrestrained drinking, when the cock (spigot) is removed from the barrel and placed on its hoop on top.
About cock-fighting
His cocks do win the battle still of mine
(ANT 2 3 35, see also QUAIL)
or
KATHERINA
What is your crest - a coxcomb?
PETRUCCIO
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
KATHERINA
No cock of mine. You crow too like a craven.
(SHR 2 1 223-5)
In this dialogue between Katherina and Petruchio, Shakespeare plays on words with "crest" being either the main symbol of a coat of arms or the tuft on the head of a bird. "Coxcomb" was the cap of fools, and "combless" is a reference to cock-fighting as it was the custom to cut the comb of unaggressive cocks as a symbol of humiliation.
By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir.
(WIV 1 1 303)
By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away tonight.
(2H4 5 1 1)
HARTING finds an explanation for "cock and pie" in the fact that it "was an ordinary alehouse sign, and may thus have become a subject for the vulgar to swear by". "Cock" can also replace "God" in oaths:
- Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.
(SHR 4 1 106 p)
This enables A.R. HUMPHREYS to provide us with another interpretation for "cock and pie", which would then be "by God and pie", where pie was "the Roman Catholic rule-book for the ordering of church offices".
Harold JENKINS, editor of the Arden Hamlet, comments on:
Young men will do't if they come to't-
By Cock, they are to blame.
(45 60-1)
that Cock is a "corruption of God" but that there is "no doubt that there is a thought of the male organ too".