Note 4 — FIRST DISCOURSE
A. R. (Alfred Richard) Allinson translation
P. 3:
◆The word which Molière popularized does not date from that time; it was used much earlier, and in the thirteenth century we see a man pay a fine of twenty ounces of gold for calling an unfortunate husband coucou (cuckold). (Usatica regni Majorici, Anno 1248.) About the middle of the fifteenth century, in a letter of remission to a guilty fellow, we find this curious remark: “Cogul, which is the same (in the vernacular) as coulz or couppault, is one of the vilest insults to be thrust at a married man.” At times the word coux was used:
Suis-je mis en la confrairie Saint Arnoul le seignenur des Coux.
But it was just about the fifteenth century that the confusion appeared between this word and the bird of April (cuckoo); the word coucou (cuckoo), which had been explained by a fable, merely imitated the cry, whereas the word cocu (cuckold) had been derived from the early Low Latin cugus. “Couquou, thus named after its manner of singing and because it is famed for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds; so, inconsistently, he is called a cocu (cuckold) in whose nest another man comes.” (Bouchet, Serées.) There is also a play by Passerat on the metamorphosis of a cuckoo which is worth mentioning. (Bib. Nat., manuscrit français, 22565, fo 24 vo.)