"hedge in the cuckoo"

[Charles C Doyle]

Below is from a bit of off-list correspondence with Joel, which may be of interest to others.

"Pen (or Hedge) the cuckoo" was (or became) one of those proverbial impossibilities--like "number the stars in the sky" or "carry water in a sieve" or "saw the air" or "make a rope of sand."

--Charlie
________________________________________
From: Charles C Doyle
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 1:55 PM

Hey, Joel--

First, I made a mistake:  Greville's poem, beginning "Away with these self-loving lads / Whom Cupid's arrow never glads,"  (or maybe it's "those self loving lads"--I'm quoting those lines from memory), was published prior to the rest of the "Caelica" sequence.  The poem appeared in John Dowland's _First Booke of Songes and Ayres_, 1597.  Here are the lines in question:  "For many run, but one must win, Fooles only hedge the Cuckoo in" (sig L1V).

>From _Merie Tales of the Made [sic] Men of Gotham_ by "A.B.," 1565:

<<On a time the men of Gotam, wold haue pynned the Cockow, that she should sing all the yeare and in the myddest of the towne they dyd make a hedge (round in compas,) and they had got a Cocow, and put her in it and sayde, singe here all the yeare, and thou shalte lacke neyther meate nor drincke. The Cocow as soone as shee was set wyth in the hedge, flew her waye. A vengeaunce on her sayde they, we made not our hedge high ynough.>> (sig. A3v-A4r).

So the proverbial phrase does not appear there--though I am guessing that it's already proverbial in the Greville poem.

I hope this helps!

Charlie

________________________________________
From: Joel S. Berson [Berson at att.net]
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 1:11 PM
To: Charles C Doyle
Subject: [off-list]  Re: [ADS-L] "hedge in the cuckoo"

Charlie,

Do you know if the phrase itself is used in either of these?  Either
would antedate the OED's two quotations.

And one would have to turn up an imprint from the early date -- which
may be difficult, since _Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_ seems
not to appear in ESTC.

Joel

At 9/9/2013 10:26 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>The old tale of the foolish Gothamites' effort to pen the cuckoo was
>published in 1565, in _Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_, often
>attributed to Andrew Borde (1490?-1543).  Greville's poem, which (as
>Garson has noted) seems to use the expression proverbially, was
>first published (posthumously) in 1633.
>
>Charlie

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