metrically rendered:
Gate, open be;
To honest men all free.
but more literally translated, “Gate, be open; and be closed to no honest man.” It was a favourite threshold invitation with the Cistercians; but the later corruption, avarice, and sloth that marked them, in common with other orders, led to a double meaning being fastened upon it, both in England and in France. The Latin construction easily admits of a cynical interpretation, figured for us by the still-surviving French punning proverb: “Faute d’un point Martin perdit son âne; i.e. By the mistake of a full-stop, Martin lost his ass;” the original Martin of this cryptic saw being the Abbot of Alne, who was so unscholarly that in setting up the honoured motto, he placed a full-stop after the word “nulli”; thus making the phrase read scandalously,
Gate opened be to none.
Closed to the honest man.
That unfortunate Abbot’s lack of learning caused the enraged people of the district, headed by rival churchmen, to demolish his Abbey.
But to return to the sea, at Blue Anchor, by way of Old Cleeve.
Past Washford—i.e. “Watchet-ford”—railway station, and down a leafy lane to the right hand, we come in a mile to the village of Old Cleeve; its pleasant rustic, vine-grown cottages commanding views of the beautiful bay between Blue Anchor and the bold promontory of North Hill, Minehead, from their bedroom windows in the heavily thatched roofs.
There is not much of Old Cleeve, but what there is, bears the impress of simplicity and innocence, not at all in unison with the scandalous rhyme: