Meaning & Analysis
Someone is being compared to a post (such as a wooden pillar or signpost), which cannot hear or speak—completely unresponsive and insensible to sound or speech.
Insights
Unresponsiveness
The proverb metaphorically describes a person who is utterly unresponsive, inattentive, or oblivious, as if they were incapable of hearing or replying.
Communication Breakdown
It can also refer to the futility of trying to communicate with someone who gives no acknowledgment, likening the effort to addressing an inanimate object.
Historical Symbolism
Posts—whether wooden signposts, doorposts, or pillars—were common fixtures in daily life, notable for their absolute silence and immobility. The comparison underscores the expectation of human interaction by contrast to the inertness of objects.
Classical and Humanist Resonance
Erasmus’s 'Statua taciturnior' ('quieter than a statue') reflects a long-standing humanist tradition of likening uncommunicative people to mute objects. The proverb's longevity testifies to a universal frustration with failed or blocked communication.
Psychological Insight
The saying addresses social and psychological alienation, identifying the discomfort and frustration caused when dialogue is met with silence, absence, or indifference.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
Uses the explicit comparative structure 'as...as' to create a vivid, accessible image of total unresponsiveness.
Hyperbole
The exaggeration inherent in comparing a person to a speechless, senseless object intensifies the point for comic or dramatic effect.
Allusion
Alludes to a broader family of proverbial comparisons to mute objects (statues, posts, stones), reinforcing the universality of the complaint.
Transcription
Quotations
Statua taciturnior.
I thereat seemde dumme and deaffe as post.
I heare no more then a post.
I will haue 'hem as silent as Signes, and their posts too.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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