Meaning & Analysis
Said of a cuckold: a man marked (mockingly) by a ‘bull’s feather’ in his crest, i.e., his wife’s infidelity.
Insights
Public Cuckoldry
The ‘bull’s feather’ functions as a figurative badge announcing that a man has been wronged in marriage; his status is visible and laughed at.
Dishonored Masculinity
Bull imagery—virility and horns—boomerangs: instead of power, it signals the husband’s failure to control the sexual boundaries of his household.
Euphemistic Branding
A whimsical ‘feather’ softens a harsh charge; polite circles could hint at adultery without naming it, yet the stigma lands all the same.
Heraldic Mockery
The ‘crest’ or plume suggests a proud insignia; here it satirically ‘decorates’ shame, turning humiliation into a grotesque ornament.
Inverted Power Symbol
The bull—emblem of strength—becomes the token of being duped; a paradox that underscores social cruelty toward the deceived.
Horns Tradition
Across Europe, cuckolds ‘wear horns’; this proverb’s ‘feather’ riffs on that bestiary, mixing bovine horns with avian plumage to mark the man as a comic hybrid.
French Conduit
Early collectors note it as a French proverb; Anglo usage naturalizes a Continental jest, showing the cross-border traffic of bawdy mockery.
Skelton’s ‘ox’s feather’
Variants like ‘ox’s feather’ emphasize the absurdity—since bovines lack feathers—heightening the taunt by sheer impossibility.
Ballad Culture
Broadside ballads celebrate ‘merry cuckolds’ who ‘wear the Bull’s Feather,’ staging communal laughter that manages anxieties about paternity and property.
Honor and Surveillance
The proverb presumes a watchful community: a wife’s conduct is everyone’s business, and male reputation is externally policed through ridicule.
Rhetorical Devices
Paradox
Bulls have no feathers; the impossible image jolts attention and brands the subject with comic impossibility.
Euphemism
‘Feather’ and ‘crest’ veil the accusation, allowing scandal to circulate in a socially acceptable register.
Metonymy/Synecdoche
A single ‘feather’ stands for the whole shameful status of cuckoldry; ‘bull’ invokes the horned emblem by naming the animal.
Irony
A ‘fair plume’—a sign of honor—marks dishonor; the compliment curls back as insult.
Allusion (heraldry)
References to crests and plumes tap heraldic display, making social shame feel official and emblazoned.
Transcription
Quotations
Lyke cokold foles together . . And yet do not consydre We wer an oxes fether.
Augustus, Antonius, Antoninus etc., that wore fair plumes of Bull's feathers in their crests.
Let no man disorder his rest, By believing Bull's feathers in in's Crest.
*This is a French Proverb, for a cuckold.
And to all merry Cuckolds who think it no scorn To wear the Bull's Feather, though made of a Horn.
Thou'lt never 'scape wearing the Bull's Feather; thy Wife will be as common as the Highway.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.