This is apparently the first occurrence of this expression, which appears in 1376 in Le Respit de la Mori by Jean Le Févre; an English author who also wrote, along with La Vieille, the translation of De Vetuda, attributed to Richard de Fournival. To jump from the cock to the ass is to make, in the course of speech, a deviation - of language? - which leads you onto a side road: that is, to break with what appeared to be its logical or rhetorical order. As if, in the middle of a crowing that would be that of the cock, the braying of the donkey were suddenly heard. However, it is not the cock-and-donkey itself that will be the subject of my remarks: neither the literary forms that it is used to designate, nor even the origin of this formula. I confess that I do not know what could have led the two animals that compose it to lend it their names, if not to offer themselves to a pure arbitrariness. However, in a certain way, it is indeed a question, by opposing the two partners of this couple, of proving their choice right. For it is in perfect conformity with the very meaning of this expression that I am going here, with the Bestiarre d'Amour, to pass from the rooster to the donkey. - [Author]

Language: French

0925-4757; DOI: 10.1075/rein.5.10luc