Riddle Ages

Bern Riddle 52: De rosa

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary on Bern Riddle 52: De rosa

Original text:

Mollis ego duros de corde genero natos;
 
In conceptu numquam amplexu viri delector.
 
Sed dum infra meis concrescunt fili latebris,
 
Meum quisque nascens disrumpit vulnere corpus.
 
Postquam decorato velantes tegmine matrem
 
Saepe delicati frangunt acumine fortes.

Translation:

Soft, I make hard children from my heart.
 
During conception, I never enjoy the embrace of a man.
 
But while my sons grow in my secret places,
 
each one breaks my body with a wound as they are born.
 
After that, wrapping the mother in a decorative covering,
 
the delicate often break the strong with a spike.

Click to show riddle solution?

Rose

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary on Bern Riddle 52: De rosa

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 52: De rosa

This riddle is the second in the Bern collection on the rose plant (the first is Riddle 34). The Bern Riddles are highly metaphorical, and they frequently combine two images—a human and a non-human one—to show how extraordinary behaviour in the human world can be considered normal in the non-human one. Riddle 52 does this exceptionally well, by presenting the germination of roses as a far from rosy mother-son relationship.

“Rose. Photograph (by Fir0002/Flagstaffotos) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY-NC 3.0)”



There is a lot going on in this riddle, so you may wish to have a copy of it open alongside my commentary—I’ll try not to go too fast! The opening line plays on the possible meanings of durus (“hard”) and mollis (“soft”). The human mother is “pretty” (mollis), but she produces children de corde duro (“from a hard heart”), a phrase that could also be understood as an unwilling or a difficult birth—the riddle returns to this theme in the next line. At the same time, the “soft” or “flexible” (mollis) plant also produces children. In the riddle’s botanical sense, “from a hard heart” may be a reference to the rose hips or the seed itself, or perhaps a reference to the “tough-heartedness” of a very spiky plant.

Line 2 is all about two meanings of conceptus, as “conception” and “budding.” The human mother tells us that she gets no enjoyment from conceptus. This may refer to enjoyment from becoming a mother or from sexual intercourse, or it could be a play on the idea of virgin birth, which occurs in several other Bern riddles, including the rather bizarre egg riddle. At the same time, the rose is telling us that she reproduces asexually (at least, as far as the riddler knows) and without the assistance of any men.

Lines 3 and 4 are all about how we read the phrase disrumpit vulnere (“to break with a wound”). In terms of the plant, this likely refers to the seedling rupturing the seed case. At the same time, this also alludes to caesarean delivery, a topic that is described using the same verb, disrumpere (“to burst, break”), in the egg riddle. A second possibility is that vulnus means “vagina” here—if so, it would suggest vaginal tearing during childbirth.
Line 5 takes the conventional image of a mother swaddling her child and reverses it—here it is the child who covers up her broken mother. Perhaps the idea is that the child has killed the mother in the previous line, and so he covers her in a burial shroud. The botanical meaning is rather tricky to explain, but tegimen (“shell”) can also mean “husk” or “seed casing,” and so it probably refers to the sapling that is growing over the remains of the seed casing.

“Close up of a rose thorn. Photograph (by Sławomir Pietrzykowski) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY 4.0)”



In line 6, the riddle swings back towards the botanical reality of the young rose, which is now growing a “spike” (acumen) that allows the delicate roses to defeat “stronger” creatures. This draws upon a similar image from an earlier riddle by Symphosius, a riddler who was working at some point between the third and sixth centuries. Symphosius’ riddle juxtaposes the rose’s fragility with its formidable defences: saeptaque, ne violer, telis defendor acutis (“and, wrapped, lest I be maltreated, I am protected by fierce spears”). In one sense, then, Riddle 52 is building on the common “strong overthrows the weak” motif. But, in the light of the events described in line 4, perhaps it has another, darker meaning—that the sons (“the weak”) have injured or killed their mother (“the strong”) by their birth.

As I mentioned in my introduction, parallel narratives are very common in the Bern riddles. However, the human and botanical narratives in Riddle 52 are particularly vivid and well-conceived. Budding riddlers could definitely take a leaf from this riddle.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Symphosius, “Riddle 45” in The Aenigmata: An introduction, Text, and Commentary. Edited by T. J. Leary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Page 45.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 10: De scala
Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice

Bern Riddle 53: De trutina

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Thu 03 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 53: De trutina

Original text:

Venter mihi nullus, infra praecordia nulla,
 
Tenui nam semper feror in corpore sicca.
 
Cibum nulli quaero, ciborum milia servans.
 
Loco currens uno lucrum ac confero damnum.
 
Duo mihi membra tantum in corpore pendunt,
 
Similemque gerunt caput et planta figuram.

Translation:

I have no belly and no guts inside,
 
for when dry, I am always carried in a thin body.
 
When storing a thousand kinds of food, I ask no one for food.
 
When running in one place, I grant profit and loss.
 
Only two limbs hang on my body,
 
and my head and feet have the same form.

Click to show riddle solution?

Scales (?)

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 755.

The putative title ("De trutina") and line 1 follow Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 600.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 53: De trutina

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 53: De trutina

Don’t think that the Exeter Book riddles are the only riddles in town with contested solutions! Like several other Bern riddles, Riddle 53 does not have a title in the manuscripts and so its solution is somewhat uncertain. In his 1886 edition of the riddles, Willhelm Meyer guessed that this riddle describes a pestle (Meyer, page 428), based on similarities to the final line of an earlier Latin riddle, Symphosius’ Riddle 87. However, as Karl Minst pointed out, a pestle does not have two limbs and it does not determine “profit” and “loss” (Glorie, page 600). P. Brandt suggested the solution “scales” in his 1883 edition (Brandt, page 129), and most subsequent scholars have agreed with him.
Lots of Bern riddles use the human body to describe their non-human subjects—it is one of the many ways that they imagine ordinary objects in fantastic ways. Our enigmatic riddle creature begins by telling us that she has no “belly” (venter) or “guts” (praecordia). This reminds me of Riddle 32’s hollow sponge, as well as the many other Bern riddles that describe the bellies and insides of things. Riddle 11’s ship, for example, carried its cargo as its viscera (“guts”). If Riddle 53’s solution is “scales,” then the absent “belly” and “guts” are, presumably, the weights and measures that it balances. The creature is either carried “when dry, in a thin body” or carried “in a thin body when dry” (tenui… in corpore sicca), depending on how one prefers to interpret the syntax. “Dry” seems to refer to the scales’ state when unloaded, and the “thin body” is their long beam.

“Scales, as the Zodiac sign of Libra, from a 13th of 14th century German manuscript (Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 30, folio 6r). Photograph (by e-codices) from Flickr (licence: BY-NC 2.0)"



Line 3 explains that the creature stores all kinds of food, yet she is never hungry. Line 4 then goes on to provide perhaps the most helpful clues of all: she grants both “profit” (lucrum) and “loss” (damnum) whilst “running in one place” (loco currens uno). Not only do scales have a critical role in many kinds of economic transactions, but they work by moving up and down “in the same place.” The final two lines seem to confirm this solution—scales have two weighing pans, or “limbs” (membra), hanging from them, and both sides of the beam (the “head” and “feet”) must be of a similar length and weight to achieve equilibrium.
So, there we have it! On the balance of things, having measured up all the options, I think that “scales” is the most likely solution. But that does not mean that the riddle has been definitively solved. I will leave you to weigh up the possibilities and decide for yourself.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Aenigma Tullii 53: De trutina [Bern Riddle 53].” Translated by Karl J. Minst. In Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968. Page 600.

Brandt, P. "Aenigmata Latina hexasticha." In Tirocinium philologum sodalium Regii Seminarii Bonnensis. Berlin: Weidmann, 1883. Pages 101-33. Available online here.

Manitus, Max. “Berner Rätsel.” In Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Volume 1. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1911. Pages 192-3.

Meyer, Willhelm. “Anfang und Ursprung der lateinischen und griechishen rhthmischen Dichtung.” In Abhandlungen der Philosophisch-Philologischen Classe der Koniglich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Volume 17 (1886), 265-450, Pages 412-30. Available online here.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 11: De nave
Bern Riddle 32: De spongia
Bern Riddle 54: De insubulis

Bern Riddle 54: De insubulis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 54: De insubulis

Original text:

Duo generantur multo sub numero fratres,
 
Nomine sub uno divisus quisque natura.
 
Pauper atque dives pari labore premuntur.
 
Pauper semper habet divesque saepe requiret.
 
Caput illis nullum, sed os cum corpore cingunt.
 
Nam stantes nihil, sed iacentes plurima portant.

Translation:

Two brothers are born under a great number,
 
and each is distinguished by nature under one name.
 
Rich and poor are pushed down by an equal effort.
 
The poor always has and the rich often needs.
 
They have no head, but rather their body surrounds their mouth.
 
Standing, they carry nothing, but lying down, they carry a great deal.

Click to show riddle solution?

Loom beams (?)

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 756.

Line 6 follows Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 601. The title, De insubulis, is the plural form of Glorie's De insubulo.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 54: De insubulis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 54: De insubulis

Last night, I saw a couple weaving all over the road. I told them to get a loom!
Now that I have got that terrible joke off my chest, I can tell you that although the manuscripts do not give a solution for Riddle 54, just like the previous riddle, it has been suggested that the solution is a weaving loom. Glorie’s and Minst’s 1968 edition of the Bern Riddles attaches the title De insubulo (“weaving beam” or “loom”), and modern scholars generally follow this lead. I agree that it is likely to be a weaving riddle, but I think that the plural “loom beams” (De insubulis) is the most likely solution. Weaving and needlework feature in several other riddles from the 7th and 8th centuries, including Aldhelm’s riddle on the spindle (No. 45), Tatwine’s riddles on needles (Nos. 11 and 13), and possibly Exeter Riddle 56. However, we are still free to consider alternatives—it is certainly not an open and shut case! Like Bern Riddle 53, the riddle is interested in ideas of equilibrium and equality, and so any solution must take this into account.
The looms used in the early European Middle Ages were typically of two kinds: the warp-weighted loom and the vertical two-beam loom. The warp-weighted loom suspended the threads from a wooden “cloth beam” and held them taut by attaching loom-weights to the threads. The beam rotated, allowing the finished cloth to be wound up onto it. The two-beam loom did away with the weights completely. It placed the cloth beam at the bottom of the loom and added a “warp beam” at the top. These two beams were rotated together, so that the upper beam warp let out the warp thread and the lower beam rolled up the woven cloth. On both types of loom, the threads ran through heddles looped around moveable heddle rods, which separated the threads for the warp.

“A traditional, warp-weighted loom from the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik. Photograph (by Wolfgang Sauber) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY-SA 3.0)”



The first thing to notice about this riddle is that it is narrated in the third person. This is unusual for the Bern Riddles, which are almost always written in the first person singular or (occasionally) plural, with only two other exceptions (in Riddle 62 and in lines 4-6 of Riddle 7). It begins by telling us the subjects of the riddle are two brothers, who are born multo sub numero (“under a great number”) and nomine… sub uno divisus (“distinguished under one name”). If we assume that the riddle is about weaving, then these brothers are probably the warp and cloth beams of a two-beam loom. These are both known under one name (insubulum) and they are “born” under a multitude of threads. An alternative explanation is that the brothers are heddle rods (Hyer, page 456). 

“A vertical two-beam loom, from the 12th century Eadwine Psalter (Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.17.1, folio 263r.). Photograph from The Wren Digital Library (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”

Lines 3 and 4 are built on a metaphor that inverts the inequalities found in human society. The rich (dives) and poor (pauper) brothers are “pressed” (premuntur) by an “equal effort” (pari labore), or perhaps “oppressed” by an equal labour.” Whereas the poor brother “always has” (semper habet), the rich one “often needs” (saepe requiret). This sounds very much like the weighing scales of Riddle 53. If the brothers are the two beams, then pari labore could allude to them working together to maintain the correct tension in the warp threads, particularly when being turned. The cloth beam is the rich brother, who collects the valuable, completed weave and is still always “asking for more.” The warp beam is the poor brother, who can be said to always “have something to give.”
Line 5 explains that the brothers are headless, but that their body “surrounds” (cingere) their mouth. I wonder whether their mouths are the loops that fasten the tread to the beams, although this is not an entirely satisfactory solution. Line 6 is easier to understand—unlike most humans, the beams only work when horizontal. Clearly, the riddler had a rather warped sense of humour.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Aenigma Tullii 54: De insubulo [Bern Riddle 54].” Translated by Karl J. Minst. In Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968. Page 601.

Cavell, Megan. Weaving Words and Binding Bodies: The Poetics of Human Experience in Old English Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Pages 35-8.

Hyer, Maren Clegg. “Riddles.” In Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (editors), Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450-1450. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pages 455-7.

Owen-Crocker, Gale R. “Looms.” In Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (editors), Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450-1450. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pages 344-7.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 55: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 55: De sole

Original text:

Semine nec ullo patris creata renascor,
 
Ubera nec matris suxi, quo crescere possem,
 
Uberibusque meis ego saepe reficio multos.
 
Vestigia nulla figens perambulo terras.
 
Anima nec caro mihi nec cetera membra.
 
Aligeras tamen reddo temporibus umbras.

Translation:

I am reborn, but I was not created from a father’s seed,
 
nor did I suck from a mother’s teat, so that I might grow,
 
and I often replenish many with my ‘breasts.’
 
I walk about the earth leaving no footsteps.
 
I have no soul, nor flesh, nor limbs.
 
Nevertheless, at times I give shadows wings.

Click to show riddle solution?

The Sun or a cloud.

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 756.

Line 3 follows the preferred reading in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 602.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 55: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 55: De sole

Who loves the sun? Riddlers do, of course! Riddle 55 is the first of eight astronomical riddles, and the first of three riddles about the sun.





Except that it might not be about the sun at all. Sol (“sun”) is grammatically masculine, whereas the subject of this riddle is described using unmistakably feminine participles. One alternative possibility is nubes (“cloud”), a feminine noun that fits the description almost as well as sun (Gavilán, page 403). However, the riddle does appear as De sole (“About the sun”) in manuscripts. See what you think!
The riddle begins with the idea of rebirth—we have seen this motif before in Riddles 6, 12, 13, 20, and 51, and on these occasions I have suggested that this was done with the Resurrection of Christ in mind. The author may also have been thinking of the Virgin Birth, since the creature was not produced semine nex ullo patris (“from a father’s seed”). If the solution is sun, then this is an apt description for the diurnal cycle, in which the sun is “born again” each morning. If the solution is “cloud,” then it describes the way that water is “reborn” in the water cycle. 

“The sun rises over the Pieniny mountains, Poland. Photograph (by Marcin Szala) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY-SA 4.0)”



Line 2 tells us that the creature was not sucked on a “mother’s teat” (ubera matris). Although the literal meaning could imply a wetnurse, the phrase has been chosen because it links nicely with the punning repetition on ubera in the next line. The creature tells us that it feeds many with “my breasts” (uberibus… meis), a phrase that alludes not to literal breasts but to figurative nutrients. Clearly, this could apply to either the sun or the cloud—if the latter is the case, then the implication is that the creature’s breastmilk is the rainwater, which nourishes all kinds of earthly life.

“Altocumulus clouds at sunset near Kamloops, Canada. Photograph (by Murray Foubister) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY-SA 2.0)”



Lines 4-6 play with the idea that the riddle creature has no solid body and leaves no traces. The “I leave no footprints” trope in line 4 is also used to describe a ship in Riddle 11 and the moon’s traceless path in Riddle 59. Despite its non-corporeality, the creature still manages to “give shadows wings,” or perhaps “make shadows fly” (aligeras reddere umbras). If the solution is “cloud” then the adverbial temporibus (“at times”) can be understood as referring to those occasions when a cloud covers up the sun. However, if the solution is “sun” then the shadows could be those cast on sundials, and so temporibus (“at [certain] times”) might have a more definite sense.
Although I have retained the riddle’s original title in my translation, I do wonder whether “About a cloud” might be a better name for it. One thing is for sure: whatever the solution might be, it is way, way over our heads.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Socas Gavilán, Francisco. Anthologia latina, 389 39, Barcelona: Gredos Editorial S.A., 2011.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 56: De sole
Bern Riddle 57: De sole
Bern Riddle 59: De luna

Bern Riddle 56: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 56: De sole

Original text:

Una mihi soror, unus et ego sorori.

Coniux illa mihi, huius et ego maritus,

Nam numquam uno sed multorum coniungimur ambo,

Sed de longe meam praegnantem reddo sororem.

Quotquot illa suo gignit ex utero partus,

Cunctos uno reddo tectos de peplo nepotes.

Translation:

I have one sister, and my sister has one of me.

She is my wife, and I am her husband,

for we are never married, but rather are separated,

and from afar I render my sister pregnant.

No matter how many babies she produces from her belly,

I deliver all the children, covered with a single robe.

Click to show riddle solution?

The Sun

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 756.

The title and line 3 follow Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 603.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 56: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 56: De sole

Remember how the last riddle was possibly about the sun, but maybe about a cloud instead. Well, although Riddle 56 is entitled “About the word” (De verbo) in several manuscripts, it is actually about the complex relationship between the sun and the moon. It seems that you can’t always trust scribes…

“Sun and moon at sunset, Tay Rail Bridge, Dundee. Photograph (by Ross2085) from Flickr (licence: CC-BY 2.0)”



We don’t think about the relationship between the sun and the moon very much today, but it was a topic of great interest for many of the most learned people in early medieval Europe. This was all because of one thing: the importance of the luni-solar calendar in calculating repeatable dates for Easter. This method of calendrical calculation became known as computus, from the Latin word computare (“to count or calculate”). Computus can be a very complex subject, but the fundamental rudiments are not too hard to understand—bear with me on this!
In the first few decades after the death of Christ, a tradition had developed in Rome, Jerusalem, and Alexandria where Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the Jews celebrated the Passover. In 325, at the First Council of Nicaea, the various churches decided to prohibit its celebration on the Passover and to calculate a date themselves. Everyone agreed that Easter should be on the first Sunday after the 14th day from the first new moon after the spring equinox. Unfortunately, they didn’t agree the nitty-gritty of the calculations, such as what date to calculate the equinox from, at what time each day should end and the next begin, and most importantly of all, what system should be used to integrate the lunar and solar calendars. This led to centuries of acrimonious disputes on the dating of Easter.

“An Easter table from the years 969-1006, from the B-section of the Leofric Missal, a computistical manual produced at Canterbury in the second half of the 10th century (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 579, folio 53r). The columns record the year, indiction (a rolling period of 15 years), epact (the age of the moon on 22nd March), concurrent (day of the week on 24th March), year in the 19-year cycle, date of the 1st new moon after the Spring equinox, and date of Easter. Photograph from Digital Bodleian  (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”



Any method to date Easter had to be repeatable and predictable in advance. This meant integrating three elements in a perpetual calendar: the synodic lunar month (an average of approximately 29.5306 days) the tropical solar year (an average of approximately 365.2422 days), and the cycle of weekdays. The most challenging aspect of this was integrating the first two. 8, 30, 84, 95, and 112-year calendar cycles all achieved varying degrees of popularity at one time or another. However, the most accurate practical sequence was a 19-year cycle, and by the 9th century, this had become the dominant calendrical method in Western Europe. 
Although the 19-year cycle was the most accurate way of integrating the lunar and solar calendars, it was not perfect, because the orbit of the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun have no direct link to one another. The calculation of the moon’s age on paper would often be several days out from the age of the moon in the real, observable world. Even after tinkering with some intercalations, the moon would still be 2.16 hours out of sync after 19 years. Many computists—including Bede—were very aware of this problem.
I hope that this all made sense. Now, we can get back to the riddle! It describes the sun and moon as brother and sister, who are also “husband” (maritus) and “wife” (coniunx). This incestuous relationship is further complicated by the fact that they are always apart from one another (line 3), and yet the sun manages to impregnate his sister (line 4) and then act as her midwife (lines 5-6). This is all rather bizarre and risqué, even for the Bern Riddles.

“ A diagram showing the days of the synodic lunar month. The tidal phases are marked around the perimeter, and a map of the world is at the centre. From the Thorney Computus, an early twelfth century English computus manual (Oxford, St. John's College, MS 17, folio 8r). Photograph from Digital Bodleian  (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”



The genders of sun and moon are easy to explain—sol is a masculine noun and luna is feminine. In fact, Aldhelm, writing riddles in the seventh century, also calls them siblings. However, it is harder to explain why the relationship is a deviant one. Not only is it incestuous, but the idea of hiding children “behind a robe” suggests that they are covering this up. In an article that I wrote in 2020, I suggested that this was because the relationship between the sun and moon in computus was also rather complicated and problematic (Mogford, pages 232-3). 
Since the sun and moon are said to always be apart in this riddle, the riddler is probably thinking of the time of the new moon—the only lunar phase when the moon is always nocturnal. In classical and medieval Latin literature, it was common to describe the full moon as metaphorically pregnant (nata). However, the riddler has cleverly extended this image to describe how the sun’s light illuminates the moon from a distance—and this gives us the curious idea of impregnation “from afar” (de longe).  
But who are the “children” (nepotes) whom the moon births and the sun delivers?  Minst argues that they are the night, whom the sun transforms into the day, but I don’t find this particularly convincing. I suspect that the riddler is thinking of the calendar here: the children are the months, who are born by the moon, but who are “covered together” (cunctos… textos) by the “single robe” (uno… peplo) of the solar year.
So, there we have it. Only in the wonderful Bern Riddles could the sun and moon become a brother and sister, who conduct an illicit relationship from a distance, with lots of babies! Next time you look up at the full moon shining in the night sky, remember the eccentric and slightly loony Bern Riddle 56!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Aenigma Tullii 56: De sole [Bern Riddle 54].” Translated by Karl J. Minst. In Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968. Page 603.

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

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Bern Riddle 55: De sole
Bern Riddle 57: De sole

Bern Riddle 57: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 57: De sole

Original text:

Prohibeor solus noctis videre tenebras
 
Et absconse ducor longa per avia fugiens.
 
Nulla mihi velox avis inventa volatu,
 
Cum videar nullas gestare corpore pennas.
 
Vix auferre praedam me coram latro valebit.
 
Publica per diem dum semper competa curro.

Translation:

I alone am prevented from seeing the night’s shadows,
 
and when hidden, I am led speeding through the remote wilderness.
 
No swift bird is found when I fly
 
since I appear to bear no feathers on my body.
 
A robber will scarcely dare to carry off plunder in my presence
 
when I pass the public crossroads each day.

Click to show riddle solution?

The Sun

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 757.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 604.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 57: De sole

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 57: De sole

This riddle is all about what happens when there ain’t no sunshine! 





It is either the second or the third riddle about the sun in a row, depending on what you think about Riddle 55. Just as Riddle 56 is erroneously titled De verbo (“About a word”) in some manuscripts, so Riddle 57 appears in several manuscripts with the title De igne (“On fire”).
The riddle begins with the idea that, unlike all other creatures, the sun never sees “the night’s shadows” (noctis… tenebras), but instead it speeds around the globe. Notice that I said “around” and not “under”—contrary to popular myth, lots of people in the Middle Ages knew that the world was a sphere. Interestingly, the sun tells us that it does not move under its own power, but rather is “led” or “pulled” (duci). This may refer to the idea that the sun moves at God’s command. Alternatively, the riddler may have a non-Christian concept in mind: solar chariots appear in the mythology of many different cultures around the world, and the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods included several sun-gods who were pulled on a chariot, including the Greek Helios and Apollo, and the Roman Sol.

“The sun, from the 12th century Eadwine Psalter (Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.17.1, folio 5v.). Photograph from The Wren Digital Library (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”

Lines 3 and 4 are quite straightforward. The riddle creature tells us that it flies but is not a bird. It also claims that birds do not fly when the sun disappears, which is true for many birds, although by no means all. It also seems to play on the orthographical similarity between via (“road,” “path”), avia (“wilderness,” literally “without path”) and avis (“bird”). The riddler may have been thinking of a remark in Isidore of Seville’s early seventh century encyclopedia, The Etymologies. Isidore writes that “They are called birds (avis) because they do not have set paths (via), but travel by means of pathless (avia) ways” ((Etymologies, page 264)). In turn, Isidore’s source was a line from a much earlier work, Lucretius’ 1st century BC poem, On the Nature of Things, which describes how the apparently random, pathless flight of “various birds, flying across trackless woods” (variae volucres nemora avia pervolitantes) that can be seen with the rising sun (On the Nature of Things, page 145).

“Contrary to the claims of bern Riddle 57, some birds do fly at night! Owl in a 13th century English bestiary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley folio 73r). Photograph from Digital Bodleian (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”

The final two lines play with the idea that robbers only operate at night, and perhaps also allude to Isidore’s etymological myth (which he borrows from the ancient Roman scholar, Marcus Terentius) that nox (“night”) was derived from nocere (“to strike, harm”) (Etymologies, page 127).The final line cleverly extends this etymology into the more complex metaphor of the publica compita (“public crossroads”), alluding to the thief’s fate upon the crossroad gallows, but also the regularity of the sun’s daily movement across the “crossroads” of the celestial meridian.
Unlike many other Bern Riddles, Riddle 57 does not use any particularly elaborate or unexpected metaphors. However, it does employ some rather clever wordplay on nox/nicere and via/avia/avis. These etymological puns probably derive from the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, and presumably the reader was expected to know and sol-ve them all.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Edited by Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach and Oliver Berghof. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things. Edited and translated by W. H. D. Rouse & Martin F. Smith. Loeb Classical Library 181. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1924.

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 55: De sole
Bern Riddle 56: De sole

Bern Riddle 58: De luna

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 58: De luna

Original text:

Assiduo multas vias itinere currens
 
Corpore defecta velox conprendo senectam.
 
Versa vice rursum conpellor ire deorsum
 
Et ab ima redux trahor conscendere sursum.
 
Sed cum mei parvum cursus conplevero tempus,
 
Infantia pars est simul et curva senectus.

Translation:

Running many roads on a regular journey,
 
swift, I count old age on a declining body.
 
On the one hand, I am forced to go downwards
 
and on the other, returning from the depths, I am dragged back up.
 
But when I have completed the short time of my course,
 
the measure is at once infancy and crooked old age.

Click to show riddle solution?

The Moon

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 737-8.

"Rursum" (line 3) is preferred to Streckler's and Glorie's "rerum," as per Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 611, f. 79r.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 547.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 58: De luna

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 58: De luna

Now we come to the first of two moon riddles—clearly, the riddler was going through a lunar phase. The description of the moon as a rapidly aging traveller is quite straightforward, and the riddle doesn’t use the bizarre imagery and extraordinary paradoxes that we often associate with the Bern collection.
The moon played a critical role in one of the most important and contentious debates in early medieval Europe—the dating of Easter. As I explained in my commentary for Riddle 56, if you want to produce repeatable and perpetual dates for Easter, you need to calculate the age of the moon on the spring equinox. Thus, some of the best minds in medieval Europe dedicated lots of thinking and lots of ink to the age of the moon. To make their calculations, they had to ask all sorts of tricky questions, such as when did one day ended and another began, and at what point an old moon become new.

“The moon, from the 12th century Eadwine Psalter (Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.17.1, folio 5v.). Photograph from The Wren Digital Library (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”

The path of the moon across the sky varies each day, relative to the horizon, the stars, and the time of year. The riddle presents this variability in terms of an unwilling but frequent traveller. The riddle creature tells us that it is always “running many roads” (multas vias... currens) in line 1. In lines 3 and 4, it goes on to describe its rising and setting in terms very similar to Riddle 57’s description of the sun’s movements—rather than moving of its own volition, it is “forced” (conpellari) to set, and it is “dragged back up” (trahi sursum). It makes me feel rather sorry for the poor moon!

“A computus table showing the lunar regulars (the age of the moon on the 1st day of a month in the 1st year of the 19-year cycle). From the B-section of the Leofric Missal, a computistical manual produced at Canterbury in the second half of the 10th century (Oxford, Bodleian Library 579, folio 53r). Photograph from Digital Bodleian  (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”



The phrases of the moon are described in terms of youth and old age. In line 2, the moon tells us corpore defecta… conprendo senectam (“I count old age on a declining body”), which would suggest that it is in its final two phases, as it wanes from full to new. Despite its age and its weakening, the moon remains “swift” (velox)—a reference to the moon’s “swift,” 29 ½-day, month as opposed to the sun’s “slow” 365.24-day year. In line 5, the moon ruminates on the “short time” (parvum tempus) of her life, just as we humans are wont to. However, the riddle does not use the typical resurrection trope that we have seen in other riddles. Instead, it explains that the oldest moon is also the youngest. This alludes to the fact that the new moon, before its waxing crescent has appeared, can be said to be both the end of the old lunar month and the beginning of the new one.
So, although it is not the most exciting riddle, it does use the image of the aging traveller to depict two aspects of the moon that can be quite complex—its daily path across the sky and its monthly phases.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Winterfeld, Paul. “Observationes criticalae.” Philologus vol. 53 (1899), pages 289-95.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 56: De sole
Bern Riddle 59: De luna

Bern Riddle 59: De luna

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 59: De luna

Original text:

Quo movear gressum, nullus cognoscere temptat
 
Cernere nec vultus per diem signa valebit.
 
Cottidie currens vias perambulo multas
 
Et bis iterato cunctas recurro per annum.
 
Imber, nix, pruina, glacies nec fulgora nocent,
 
Timeo nec ventum forti testudine tecta.

Translation:

No one tries to see the path on which I am moved
 
nor will they make out the marks of my face during the day.
 
Running daily, I wander many roads,
 
and I travel them all twice per year.
 
Rain, snow, frost, ice and lightning do not hurt me,
 
nor do I, covered with a strong shell, fear the wind.

Click to show riddle solution?

The Moon

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 757.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 606.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 59: De luna

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 59: De luna

Unfortunately, by the time that I came to write this commentary, I had used up all my moon puns. Clearly, I didn’t planet very well!  
The second moon riddle in the Bern collection, Riddle 59 continues to use the traveller motif found in Riddle 58, but it is all about visibility and invisibility, recurring cycles, and the difference between artificial light and natural moonlight. In my last commentary, I suggested that the last riddle was about the waning and the new moon. This one is more interested in the full moon. Let’s take a look!

“A table used to show the passage of the moon through the zodiac each day. (the age of the moon on the 1st day of a month in the 1st year of the 19-year cycle). From the third section of St. Dunstan's Classbook, a 10th century English miscellany (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Auct. F. 4. 32, folio 20v).Photograph from Digital Bodleian  (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”



The riddle opens with the apparent paradox that something can move and yet not be seen moving. This might refer to the monthly new moon or the daily change in the moon’s path, both of which were mentioned in the previous riddle. However, I think it is more likely to be saying that “nobody notices” the moon’s movement because this cannot be discerned with one glance, or even over the space of a few minutes.
The theme of invisibility and imperceptability continues into the second line. The statement that no one can cernere nec vultus per diem signa (“make out the marks of my face during the day”) is not usually true, since the moon is frequently visible during the daytime. The only time that this is never the case is during a full moon because the sun and moon must be on the opposite sides of the earth for the full lunar hemisphere to be illuminated.

“Part of a calendar entry for January. The green text tells the reader that there are 31 regular days and 30 lunar days, i.e. a full lunation, in January (IANUARIUS habet dies XXXI. Luna XXX). From the Thorney Computus, an early 12th century computus manual (Oxford, St John's College MS 17, folio 16r). Photograph from Digital Bodleian  (licence: BY-NC 4.0)”



Line 3 repeats an idea from the previous riddle—the moon is a wanderer who takes many paths. But Line 4 is more cryptic, telling us that it travels them all bis iterato per annum, which could mean either “twice per year” or “in two repetitions through the year”. I don’t have a convincing explanation for the first interpretation, but the second could refer to the method that the medieval calendar measured the lunar month on paper. Since a lunar month is just over 29 ½ days in length on average, it was divided into two, alternating “lunations”: the full (30 day) and hollow (29 day) lunations.
The final two lines look back to Riddle 2’s description of the lantern, which told us that nolo me contingat imber nec flamina venti (“I do not wish to meet with the rain nor a blast of wind”). Here, however, the moon’s light cannot be put out by “rain, snow, frost, ice, and lightening (imber, nix, pruina, glacies nec fulgora). It also across to an earlier riddle, Symphosius’s Riddle 67, which describes a lantern as cornibus apta cavis (“ready with curved horns”). The idea is that the lamp is made of protective horn, and the crescent moon is itself “horned.” You can read more about this extended riddle theme in my commentary for Riddle 2.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Symphosius, “Riddle 67” in The Aenigmata: An introduction, Text, and Commentary. Edited by T. J. Leary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Pages 47, 183-4.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 58: De luna

Bern Riddle 60: De caelo

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 60: De caelo

Original text:

Promiscuo per diem vultu dum reddor amictus,
 
Pulchrum saepe reddo, turpis qui semper habetur.
 
Innumeras ego res cunctis fero mirandas.
 
Pondere sub magno rerum nec gravor onustus.
 
Nullus mihi dorsum, faciem sed cuncti mirantur,
 
Et meo cum bonis malos recipio tecto.

Translation:

When, clothed, I have a public face during the day,
 
I often make a thing beautiful that is always considered ugly.
 
I bring innumerable wonders for everyone.
 
When laden, I am not burdened by the heavy weight of things.
 
I have no back, but everybody wonders at my face,
 
and I receive the bad along with the good under my roof.

Click to show riddle solution?

The sky

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 758.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 607.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 60: De caelo

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 60: De caelo

This riddle goes way over my head—because it is all about the sky, and specifically the sky during the daytime. It is the sixth of eight astronomical riddles in the collection.
Line 1 tells us that the sky is, like most of us humans, “clothed” or “dressed” (amictus) during the day. This might conceivably refer to the sunlight, the clouds, or its characteristic blue colour. It also has a “public face” (promiscuus vultus), which is the opposite of the previous riddle, which discussed the moon in terms of invisibility. Although I have translated it idiomatically as “I have a public face,” the verb reddor ensures that it literally means “I am returned to a public face,” alluding to the endlessly cyclical nature of the dawn. Line 2 then imagines the daylight as beautifying the “ugly” (turpus) night, which is depicted as a dangerous and rather unpleasant time in Riddle 57.

“The sky, “clothed” with sunlight and cumulus humilis clouds, above Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia. Photograph (by Toby Hudson) from Wiki Commons (licence: BY-SA 3.0)”



Several Bern riddles describe things that carry a burden without any effort—Riddle 24’s parchment carried thousands of words and Riddle 7’s bladder held a great deal of air, both without any difficulty at all. Something similar occurs in line 4, which explains how the sky can be “laden” (onustus) by the clouds, sun, moon, planets, and stars, without being bothered at all by the “heavy weight of things” (pondere sub magno rerum). Oh, what a happy sky! Despite its burden, it does not have a “back” (dorsum) upon which it can carry anything, but only a “face” (vultus). The idea expressed here is that the “dome” of the heavens never appears convex, but only ever concave—we do not see the heavens “from the other side,” as it were.
The final line explains that absolutely everyone—good and bad—can be found under the “roof” (tectum) of the heavens during the daytime. In previous commentaries, I have mentioned that the Bern riddles love to play intertextual games with each other, and this is a great example. It seems to have in mind Riddle 57’s description of the day as a time when criminals cannot plunder. It may also be thinking of the depiction of the heavens as a giant celestial nunnery in Riddle 62. Since religious houses offered sanctuary and shelter to all people, no matter what their crimes, they can also be said to receive “the good with the bad” (cum bonis malos) under their roof.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 61: De umbra

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Sun 06 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 61: De umbra

Original text:

Humidis delector semper consistere locis
 
Et sine radice inmensos porrigo ramos.
 
Mecum iter agens nulla sub arte tenebit,
 
Comitem sed viae ego conprendere possum.
 
Certum me videnti demonstro corpus a longe,
 
Positus et iuxta totam me nunquam videbit.

Translation:

I am always happy to stand in humid places
 
and I stretch out my huge branches without a connecting trunk.
 
The one travelling with me will hold [me] by no art
 
but I can stop a fellow traveller.
 
I reveal a definite body to those who see me from far off,
 
and, stood nearby, they will never all see of me.

Click to show riddle solution?

A shadow; night

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 758.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 608.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 61: De umbra

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 61: De umbra

When I read this riddle, I instantly hear Whitesnake’s 80s metal classic, Still of the Night. Make of this what you will!





The solution to this riddle is best thought of as “night” or perhaps “the night’s shadow.” However, it is entitled De umbra (“On the shadow” or “On darkness”) in one manuscript, in a similar way to how Riddle 57’s sun is referred to as De igne (“On fire”) in several copies.
Line 1 begins with the idea that the night likes to stand in “humid or damp places” (humidis… locis). This is followed by a nice piece of misdirection in line 2, which imagines the night as an enormous series of branches that have no connecting trunk. Trees are, of course, very happy to stand in damp places. But why does night like to do this? In my commentaries for Riddle 20 and 44, I explained the concept of celestial dew. Today, we know that dew is formed as temperatures drop during the night, so that water vapour condenses on cooling surfaces. However, early medieval science thought that the dew fell from the moon and stars. This extract from the anonymous De mundi constitutione, a scientific text written at some point between the 9th and 11th centuries and falsely attributed to the Venerable Bede, summarises the concept quite nicely:
  …quod Lune attribuitur eo quod illa sit cribum celestium; alii attribuunt Veneri. Caditque et vespere et mane. Qui, si frigore prevenitur, pruina effictur… Aliud quoque in autumnali volitat tempore quod pueri vocant estatem; unde aranee telas faciunt; quod est fex aeris Sole desiccati. Preterea, ventis imminentibus, inferior iste aer superiori colliditur; unde scintille prosiliunt, que stellarum casum imitantur… et in agris invente flefmatis similitudinem exprimunt; sunt autem res venenose.


  [This is attributed to the Moon in that the Moon is the sieve of the heavenly bodies; others attribute this to Venus. It falls in both the morning and the evening. But if it is overtaken by cold, hoarfrost is produced… Another sort floats around in autumn time, which boys call aestas; from this, spiders make their webs, and it is the residue of air dried up by the sun. Furthermore, when winds are threatening, the lower air strikes the air above; as a result, there spring out sparks, which imitate the falling of the stars… and when found in fields exhibit a similarity to phlegm. These, however, are poisonous things.]

–Pseudo-Bede, De mundi celestris terrestrisque constitutione, pages 30-1.

As you can see, there were several different kinds of celestial dew, all of which were thought to fall from the heavens—and this makes night a very damp time!

“The night sky, viewed from hills near Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Photograph (by Coconino National Forest) from Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY-SA 3.0)”




The traveller motif appears quite frequently in the Bern riddles, including in Riddles 58 and 59, where the moon is depicted as a swift and rapidly aging wanderer. In lines 3 and 4, the motif is reworked into the idea that no traveller can “stop” or “grasp” (conprendere) the night from coming and going, but it is very capable of stopping other people from travelling, either because they can’t see where they are going or because they fear being robbed by Riddle 57’s robber! Conprendere (“to grasp”) can also mean, by extension, “to see,” and so you could also translate this phrase as “no one can see me…,” which is also true, since darkness is the absence of vision.

“Sunset in the woods in Tok, Alaska, USA. Photograph (by Diego Delso) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0)



The idea that humans cannot see the night itself is developed further in lines 5-6. Although the “definite body” (certum corpus) of the darkening sky can be perceived, one cannot see the “entire” night in one glance, since it stretches far beyond the horizon. This idea reminds me of a concept in ecological philosophy, which has also been used to describe natural phenomena in literature: the hyperobject. First used by Timothy Morton in his 2012 book, The Ecological Thought, the term is used to describe complex objects and systems in nature that are too vast to be experienced in their entirety, and which disrupt our very ideas about the nature of things. Examples of hyperobjects include the internet, the English language, and climate change. In our riddle, the hyperobject is the night, which is too vast to be perceived in its entirety—it is described as a series of branches without a trunk in line 2. In this way, a 7th century riddle engages with ideas that are at the cutting edge of ecological theory and ecocriticism in the 21st century.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Pseudo-Bede. De mundi celestris terrestrisque constitutione. Edited and translated by Charles Burnett. Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts X. London: The Warburg Institute, 1985.

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota press, 2013.

Röösli, Samuel. “The Pot, the Broom, and Other Humans: Concealing Material Objects in the Bern Riddles.” In Secrecy and Surveillance in Medieval and Early Modern England. Edited by Annette Kern-Stähler & Nicole Nyffenegger. Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature (SPELL) 37. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2020. 87-104 (page 97).

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 59: De luna

Bern Riddle 62: De stellis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Sun 06 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 62: De stellis

Original text:

Milia conclusae domo sub una sorores,
 
Minima non crescit, maior nec aevo senescit
 
et cum nulla parem conetur adloqui verbis,
 
suos moderato servant in ordine cursus.
 
Pulchrior turpentem vultu non dispicit ulla,
 
odiuntque lucem, noctis secreta mirantur.

Translation:

A thousand sisters contained in one house,
 
the smaller does not grow, nor does the bigger grow old,
 
and, although none tries to speak to another in words,
 
they keep their courses in a controlled order.
 
The more beautiful does not despise the ugly-faced;
 
they hate the light and marvel at the mysteries of night.

Click to show riddle solution?

The stars

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 758.

A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 609.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 62: De stellis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Thu 01 Apr 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 62: De stellis

Stars and nuns—what a great combination! Riddle 62 is one of my very favourite riddles. It is all about the relationship between humans and the stars, and it depicts the stars as nuns and the heavens as an enormous, celestial nunnery.  It is also one of only three Bern riddles written in the 3rd person (the other two are Riddles 54 and lines 4-6 of Riddle 7).

“The midnight sky in June, Brandenburg an der Havel (Germany). Photograph (by Mathias Krumbholz) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)



The riddle begins with the image of “a thousand sisters” (milia sorores) who live in “one house” (domo…una). The number 1000 is far too small to account for all the visible stars, but it serves as a proxy term for a huge and uncountable amount. It is possible to read the riddle as one about genetic sisters in a domestic setting (see Röösli, pages 94-5). But there are several clues that the riddler has a religious community in mind: they are sisters who live silently (line 3), harmoniously (line 4), and without envy (line 5) in a single house.
Stars were an important element in medieval monastic timekeeping. Monks and nuns placed especial importance on living their lives according to a communal schedule, because such obedience provided stability in a world of flux and it negated the whims and desires of the individual. Thus, ringing the bell at the right time for monks to wake up, pray, or chant the psalms was very important for them. One of the most important timings in the schedule was when to rise during the middle of the night for the celebration of Nocturns, the first of the Monastic Hours. St Benedict of Nursia, the sixth century author of the most influential monastic rule in western monasticism, specified that, during the winter half of the year, “it is necessary to rise at the eighth hour of the night” (octava hora noctis surgendum est (Regula Benedicti, page 52)). This required a form of accurate timekeeping at night—and this is where the stars come into the picture.

“6 nuns holding psalters, from a late 13th century French manuscript (London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 11, f. 6v). Photograph (by the British Library) from The British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (licence: CC 0 1.0)



Several medieval sources mention the use of the stars for nocturnal timekeeping. The earliest, as far as I am aware, is John Cassian’s account of the practices of Egyptian and Syrian monasticism at the end of the fourth century (Institutes, pp. 108A-10A.). This practice spread to western Europe along with the spread of monasticism in subsequent centuries. In the second half of the sixth century, Gregory of Tours produced a handbook on practical astronomy, De cursu stellarum. In it, he gives descriptions and diagrams of the constellations and their movements, which would allow the cathedral clergy of Tours and local monastics to calculate time based the stars’ rising and setting. Five hundred years later, and the stars were still being used in monasteries around Europe. For example, several sources describe this kind of timekeeping being used in the influential French monastery of Cluny in the early twelfth century. Only from the end of the eleventh century did water clocks and hour glasses slowly begin to take over timekeeping duties.
I really do think that the riddler was thinking about monastic timekeeping when they wrote this riddle. The term cursus in line 4 refers to the stars’ movements (the cursus stellarum), but also the cursus psalmorum (“order of the psalms”) that made up the mainstay of the monastic day. On the one hand, the stars move silently and keeping their cursus (“courses”) “in controlled order” (moderato… in ordine). On the other, the nuns maintain their own liturgical scheme (suos cursus) of psalms and prayers without chatter and as part of a regulated sequence (moderato…in ordine). The movements of the nuns on the earth obediently follow those of the stars in the heavens.
I hope you will agree with me that Riddle 62 is one of the most unconventional (nunconventional?) and creative riddles in the Bern collection. After all, is there a better image in the medieval riddle tradition than a sky full of flying nuns?

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Benedict of Nursia. Regula Benedicti. Edited by Rudolph Hanslik, Regula Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 75,. Vienna, Hoelder-Pinchler-Tempsky, 1960.

Borst, Arno. The Ordering of Time: From the Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer. Translated by Andrew Winnard. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993.

Cassian, John. De coenobiorum institutis libri duodecim. In Joannis Cassiani opera omnia. Edited by Jacques Paul Migne. Vol. 1, Patrologia Latina 49. Paris: J.P. Migne, 1846. Pages 53A-395A. Available here.

Gregory of Tours. De cursu stellarum ratio. In Gregorii Turonensis Opera. Edited by Bruno Krusch. Vol. 1.2, MGH Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum. Hanover: MGH, 1969. Pages 109-422. Available here.

McCluskey, Stephen C. Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Mogford, Neville. “The Moon and Stars in the Bern and Eusebius Riddles.” In Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions. Edited by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pages 230-46.

Röösli, Samuel. “The Pot, the Broom, and Other Humans: Concealing Material Objects in the Bern Riddles.” In Secrecy and Surveillance in Medieval and Early Modern England. Edited by Annette Kern-Stähler & Nicole Nyffenegger. Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature (SPELL) 37. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2020. 87-104 (page 94-5).

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 63: De vino

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Sun 06 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 63: De vino

Original text:

Pulchrior me nullus versatur in poculis umquam, 
 
Ast ego primatum in omnibus teneo solus, 

Viribus atque meis possum decipere multos; 

Leges atque iura per me virtutes amittunt. 

Vario me si quis haurire volverit usu, 

Stupebit ingenti mea percussus virtute.

Translation:

No one more beautiful than me ever lives in cups, 

but I am uniquely supreme over everyone, 

and I can ensnare many with my powers. 

Laws and rules lose their strength through me. 

If someone wants to drain me by frequent use, 

once affected, they will be stupefied by my great strength.

Click to show riddle solution?

Wine

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 759.

The title follows Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 610.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 63: De vino

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Thu 01 Apr 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 63: De vino

The final riddle in the Bern collection only appears in two manuscripts. It is untitled, but the solution is obvious. It is not as madcap or creative as many other Bern riddles, and it is also written in a different meter, so it is doubtful whether it belongs to the original collection. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is its use of acrostic, spelling out the name PAULUS in the first letter of each line—presumably the author of the poem was called Paul. Acrostic is not so common in literature today, although it does  get used from time to time, but it was a well-used feature of early medieval Latin literature. For example, the seventh century riddler, Aldhelm, uses the technique in the preface to his riddles to spell out twice Aldhelmus Cecinit millenis versibus odas (“Aldhelm composed poems in one thousand lines”).
As I explained in my commentary on Riddle 50, riddles had a long association with wine. Two other Bern riddles were written about of wine and winemaking: Riddles 13 and 50. However, unlike the others, which disguise their subjects in some unusual and cryptic ways, Riddle 63 pretty much gives the solution away in the very first line, when it tells us that “No one more beautiful than me ever lives in cups” (Pulchrior me nullus versatur in poculis umquam). 

“Monks feasting and drinking wine, from the late 11th century/early 12th century Tiberius Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius C VI, folio 5v). Photograph from The British Library Digitalised Manuscripts (copyright: British Library).



Riddles often depict the relationship between humans and their alcoholic tipples as one of temporary overthrow, where the beverage overpowers or takes revenge upon its imbiber. Thus, the wine “ensnares” or “misleads” (decipere) and “stupifies” (stupere) the drinker in lines 2 & 6, and it subverts “laws and rules” (leges atque iura) with its strength in line 4. None of this really goes beyond the level of description, but the riddler does at least capture the typical themes of the genre. However, it lacks the depth of disguise and playfulness that make the Bern riddles so endlessly fascinating. At least, that’s what I think!

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 13: De vite
Bern Riddle 50: De vino