This particular sign was imported from France, where the calembour sign flourished. Some even say that the punning sign became popular in England only “after Edward ye 3 had conquered France.” The French have two interpretations of the “Labor in Vain”: one corresponds with the English version; the other, “Au temps perdu,” represents a schoolmaster teaching an ass. As counterpart we find “Le temps gagné,” a peasant carrying his donkey. The French calembours were decidedly less reverential than the English punning signs. Neither religion nor good morals are sacred to the Gallic wag, who is allowed to say anything if he understands how to turn it gracefully. “Le Signe de la croix” is depicted by a swan (cygne) and a cross, and even the tragic scene of Jesus taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane—le juste pris—is turned into the shameless words, “Au juste prix,” to advertise the cheapness of drinks and victuals. More innocent is the distortion of the “Lion d’or” into the undeniable truth, “Au lit on dort,” or the inscription on a white-horse sign: “Ici on loge à pied et à cheval.” The temptation to use such calembours no trader could resist. A corset-maker praised his goods thus: “Je soutiens les faibles, je comprime les forts, je ramène les égarés.” We shall see in the following chapter how such pointed jokes and blasphemies roused the righteous indignation of the honorable and pious citizens and increased the enemies of the sign, who finally gave it the coup de grâce.
Cavallo Bianco
Borgo San Dalmazzo, Italy
[CHAPTER XII]
THE ENEMIES OF THE SIGN AND ITS END
“Ne songez pas même à réformer les enseignes d’une ville!”
In mediæval times the signs were not only charming or pious decorations of the snug narrow streets, but they were also very useful and practical guides for the wayfarer through the labyrinth of crooked lanes. Even the uneducated understood their pictorial language like illustrations in a book which give even to a child a certain clue to its meaning. For this very reason the learned Sebastian Brant decorated his edition of Virgil of 1522 with elaborate pictures,—expolitissimis figuris atque imaginibus nuper per Sebastianum Brant superadditis,—firmly hoping that now even the unlearned would easily understand the beauties of his beloved author: “Nec minus indoctus perlegere illa potest.” While the learned men in general continued to despise pictures in their editions of the classics, the first popular books tried through their wood-cuts to speak to the fancy of the common people and thus win their applause. Just as these pictures in the old books, so the signs in the streets spoke to the indoctus. Therefore, if somebody wished to send a letter to his banker in Fleet Street, London, he needed only to tell his messenger that it was at the “Three Squirrels,” and he was sure that even the greatest numskull could find it. Unfortunately the owners of this old banking-house have withdrawn the sign, so it took me quite a while before I found it safely hung up on a modern iron arm in the office of Messrs. Barclay & Co., No. 19, Fleet Street. The characteristic interpretation of the sign, given to me by the banker himself, was: “May you never want a nut to crack.”