The cockerel and its crow: herald of day and foe of darkness

The cockerel's crow divides night from day, and for this very reason the bird has become in many cultures a symbol of the boundary between darkness and light. In European tradition its cry announced the dawn, put nocturnal spirits to flight and called the faithful to vigilance. Yet a crow at the wrong time could also be read as an omen. Ancient, Christian and literary sources allow us to follow this long symbolic history with precision.

From Socrates's cock to the sacred chickens

In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates, close to death after drinking the hemlock, reminds Crito that a cock is owed to Asclepius, the god of medicine. The words have been interpreted in many ways, sometimes as thanks for being healed of the illness of life. The cockerel was in fact a traditional offering to the healing god.

In Rome the sacred chickens played a part in divination: the way they pecked at their food was observed by the pullarii before battles. Cicero, in De natura deorum, recalls the consul Publius Claudius Pulcher who in 249 BC at Drepana, annoyed because the chickens would not eat, had them thrown into the sea «ut biberent», so that they might drink. His fleet was then defeated, and the episode became an example of impiety punished.

The herald of day in the Christian tradition

In the Gospels the cock crows after Peter's threefold denial, and from then on it became the symbol of repentance and vigilance. Christian poets made it an image of Christ who awakens souls: Prudentius, at the end of the fourth century, opens the first hymn of the Cathemerinon by calling it «ales diei nuntius», the winged messenger of day, and Ambrose had already celebrated it in his morning hymns.

The cockerels placed on bell towers derive from this symbolism. One of the oldest to survive is the Ramperto cockerel, a weathervane in gilded copper linked to Bishop Rampert of Brescia and dated to the ninth century, now displayed in the Museo di Santa Giulia. On top of the church, the cockerel reminded the faithful to keep watch and not to fall into Peter's fault.

The crow that drives away spirits

A very widespread belief held that the spirits of the night vanished at cockcrow. Shakespeare takes it up in Hamlet, where the ghost of the king disappears at dawn and Horatio calls the cock «the trumpet to the morn». Lucretius, in De rerum natura, had already reported that even lions cannot bear the sight and voice of the cockerel.

Crowing at the wrong hour, by contrast, was viewed with suspicion. In many parts of Italy and Europe a cock that crowed at night, or a hen that imitated its call, was considered an announcement of misfortune, death or change, and its presence in the farmyard was discussed with fear by the neighbours. The value of the signal therefore depended on the moment at which it was given.

The cockerel is a clear example of how a natural behaviour can turn into a moral and religious symbol. By announcing the day, the bird becomes the guardian of the boundary between the visible and the invisible, between waking and sleep. From the Phaedo to medieval bell towers and on to the Elizabethan stage, its crow has accompanied European reflection on light, on time and on conscience.