“Always behind, like a cow’s tail.” “Tanquam coda vituli.” (Petronius.)
The cow knows not the worth of her tail till she loses it, and is troubled with flies, which her tail brushed off.
“What we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it; but being lackʹd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value.”
Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, iv. 1.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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