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Milking the bull

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A proverb indicating a fruitless task
The proverb illustrated on a playing card in about 1535 by Hans Schäufelein.

Milking the bull is a proverb which uses the metaphor of milking a bull to indicate that an activity would be fruitless or futile.

In the 16th century, the German painter Hans Schäufelein illustrated the proverb on the eight of bells in a deck of playing cards.

Dr Johnson used the proverb to criticise the work of David Hume and other skeptical philosophers.

See also

References

  1. Malcolm Jones (1989), "Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art I: Proverbial Follies and Impossibilities", Folklore, 100 (2): 201–217, doi:10.1080/0015587X.1989.9715766
  2. Edgar Wind (1943), "Milking the Bull and the He-Goat", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
  3. Malcolm Jones (2009), "Lively Representing the Proverbs", The Proverbial Pied Piper, Peter Lang, p. 5, ISBN 9781433104893
  4. Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle (1895), William Strunk (ed.), Macaulay's and Carlyle's essays on Samuel Johnson, H. Holt & Co., p. 192{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. Peter Ryan (2000), "Milking the bull", Quadrant, 44 (11): 87–88
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