he is rich in fascinating stories to win the landlord’s favors and to secure ample credit. Full of self-assurance, he demands always the best of everything, “boire ypocras à jour et à nuyctée” (day and night to sip Hypokras), one of Falstaff’s various favorite drinks.
Curious sign-names Villon mentions; as, the tin plate,—
“le cas advint an Plat d’estain,”—
or, the golden mortar (“le mortier d’or”), and even “the pestle.” The mortar was really a chemist’s sign. To-day, even, we may see, in a little French provincial town over the door of a druggist, a bear diligently braying some wholesome herb, in a mortar, an “Ours qui pile.”
“Or advint, environ midy,
Qu’il estoit de faim estourdy;
S’en vint à une hostellerie
Rue de la Mortellerie,
Où pend l’enseigne du Pestel
À bon logis et bon hostel;