Bern Riddle 42: De glacie
NEVILLEMOGFORD
Date: Tue 01 Dec 2020Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 42: De glacie
Original text:
Arte me nec ulla valet durescere quisquam.
Efficior dura, multosque facio molles.
Cuncti me solutam cara per oscula gaudent
Et nemo constrictam manu vel tangere cupit.
Speciem mi pulchram dat turpi rigidus auctor,
Qui eius ab ira iubet turpiscere pulchros.
Translation:
No one can harden me by any art.
I am formed hard and I make many soft.
When I am dissolved, everyone praises me with dear kisses,
and when I am bound up, no one wishes to touch me by hand.
A stern creator gives a beautiful form to ugly me;
out of his wrath, he orders the beautiful to become ugly.
Ice
Notes:
This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 751.
Lines 1 and 2 follow the preferred reading in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 588.
Tags: latin Bern Riddles