Note E417 — 67.
Reading edition
"The blacke oxe neare trod on thy fut:" a proverbial expression, meaning, you have experienced misfortune close at home.
In Peacock's Glossary of Manley, etc. (E. D. Soc. 1877), we have: "The Black Bull's trodden on him;" that is, he is in a very bad temper. And the following passage from Bernard's Terence is quoted: "Prosperitie hangs on his sleeue; the black oxe cannot tread on his foot."
"Venus waxeth old; and then she was a pretie wench, when Juno was a young wife; now crowes foote is on her eye, and the black oxe hath trod on her foot."—Lyly's Sapho and Phao, 1584, ed. 1858, i. 199.
Mr. George Vere Irving (Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser. xii. 488) remarks that this expression is at this day frequently used in Scotland in reference to a person who has experienced misfortune. See Hazlitt's Eng. Proverbs, p. 359.