Riddle Ages

Aldhelm Riddle 85: Caecus natus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Iam referam verbis tibi, quod vix credere possis,

Cum constet verum fallant nec frivola mentem.

Nam dudum dederam soboli munuscula grata,

Tradere quae numquam poterat mihi quislibet alter,

Dum Deus ex alto fraudaret munere claro,

In quo cunctorum gaudent praecordia dono.

Translation:

Now I shall relate in words to you what you will hardly be able believe,

Though it is the truth and not follies that cheat the mind.

For once I gave welcome little gifts to my son,

Which no one else was ever able to give me,

Because God from on high deprived me of the bright gift,

The gift in which the hearts of all are glad.

Click to show riddle solution?

A Man Born Blind

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 85: Perna

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Nobile duco genus magni de gente Catonis.

Una mihi soror est, plures licet esse putentur.

De fumo facies, sapientia de mare nata est.

Translation:

I lead a noble line, from the great Cato’s kind;

I have one sister, even if there are thought to be more;

My face is from smoke, my taste is born from the sea.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ham

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 85

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 18 Jul 2019

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 85

Riddle 85 tells a story that we all know well: fish can’t survive out of water. I think there may even be a saying about that…

Here is a nice Carp Bream via
Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
This riddle topic is found around the world and in many different historical contexts, so we can be fairly certain of its solution (Bitterli, page 14). The first recorded instance seems to be that of the 4th/5th-century North African riddler Symphosius. His Latin Enigma 12, Flumen et Piscis (River and Fish) reads:
est domus in terris clara quae voce resultat.

ipsa domus resonat, tacitus sed non sonat hospes.

ambo tamen currunt hospes simul et domus una. (Leary, page 41)
(There is a house on earth that rebounds with a clear voice.

The house itself resounds, but its silent host does not make a sound.

Nevertheless, both the host and the house travel together at the same time.)
Pretty similar to Riddle 85, right? We have a noisy house and a silent inhabitant traveling together. Here the inhabitant is a hospes (host…or guest for that matter), which is a little different from our Old English riddle, but it’s still much of a muchness.

 
There’s another – much shorter this time – Latin version that makes use of the same motif in Alcuin of York’s fabulously titled Disputatio regalis et nobilissimi iuvenis Pippini cum Albino scholastico (Debate between the regal and noble youth Pippin and Alcuin the scholar). Alcuin wrote this prose debate with its many puzzles and riddles for Pippin, the son of Charlemagne, likely when he was working at the Carolingian court from the years 781-794 (Bitterli, page 13). I *really* like this version because the Pippin of the text is a cheeky little thing:
A. Vidi hospitem currentem cum domo sua, et ille tacebat et domus sonabat.

B. Para mihi rete, et pandam tibi. (Alcuin, page 142, number 98)
(Alcuin: I saw a host travelling with his house; he was silent, and his house resounded. 

Pippin: Get a net for me, and I will lay it out for you.)
Pippin is saying that he knows full well where to look for the solution to this riddle. And his command to get him a net hints at the death of the fish, which he jokes about removing from its watery habitat.
When it comes to Riddle 85, I like to think that this watery habitat is evident in the repeated sounds that snake their way through the poem. There are a heck of a lot of ‘s’ and ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds (in Old English ‘sc’ is pronounced ‘sh’ and ‘c’ is often ‘ch’), echoing the noisy, rushing river described in the opening lines. But then we reach the final line’s hard ‘d’s, which slow the rushing water to a standstill, linking gedælað (are divided) and deað (death) in the process. The sonic play of this poem is DEEP, guys.
And the fish’s death is an innovation of the Old English poet – no OE poem is complete without a good helping of angst! Hence, death is the focus of the final lines. The fish – now the speaker rather than mere subject of the riddle – muses: Ic him in wunige a þenden ic lifge; / gif wit unc gedælað, me bið deað witod (I always dwell within him for as long as I live; if we two are divided, death is certain for me). Just as the water back in Riddle 77 protected the oyster from voracious humans, here the river is life-sustaining for the fish. But it’s more than that: this animal and its habitat share a symbiotic existence, a common siþ (journey). They’re linked firmly together by the fabulous dual pronouns unc and wit, pronouns whose meaning – “the two of us” – suggests an especially close bond. And the animal/habitat are also linked in that the riddle, as Marie Nelson puts it, “has a strangely compound single subject. There is a solution, but it is fish and river, two identities so dependent that they seem one” (page 611). Two become one.
The journey of the fish and river is placed firmly within a Christian framework, as the fish-speaker (good compound, that!) proclaims that dryhten (the lord) created both the animal and its home. This and the poem’s focus on unity vs separation and life vs death has led to the suggestion of an alternate solution: Soul and Body (Orchard, page 294; Murphy, page 20). Poems about the soul and body are pretty common in Old English, and the idea that one lives within the other – often rather unwillingly! – comes up time and time again. See, for example, Soul and Body II (full translation here), which lives in the same manuscript as Riddle 85:
Eardode ic þe in innan.      No ic þe of meahte,

flæsce bifongen,      ond me firenlustas

þine geþrungon. (lines 30-2a)
(I lived within you. Nor was I able get out of you,

surrounded by flesh, and your sinful pleasures

oppressed me.)
Yeah, I can see how this is similar to Riddle 85, apart from the fact that the body does the soul wrong (earthly temptations and all that), while the river is essential to the fish. So it’s more likely, as Patrick Murphy argues, that a soul-and-body metaphor is being used to give this riddle about a fish and river a little extra something something…my words, not his (page 20).
With that in mind and with the prospect of my own river-side holiday looming large, I’m going to leave you to ponder this riddle on your own now.
Here, have some nice, ambient background sounds as you go:

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading

Alcuin. “Disputatio regalis et nobilissimi juvenis Pippini cum Albino scholastico.” In Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti Philosophi. Edited by Lloyd William Daly and Walther Suchier. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1939, pages 134-46.

Bitterli, Dieter. Say What I am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, esp. pages 14-18.

Leary, T. J., ed. Symphosius: The Aenigmata: An Introduction, Text and Commentary. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Murphy, Patrick. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011, esp. pages 19-20.

Nelson, Marie. “The Paradox of Silent Speech in the Exeter Book Riddles.” Neophilologus, volume 62, issue 4 (1978), pages 609-15.

Orchard, Andy. “Enigma Variations: The Anglo-Saxon Riddle-tradition.” In Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge. Edited by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pages 284-304.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 85 latin

Related Posts:
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 77
Exeter Riddle 77
Exeter Riddle 85

Aldhelm Riddle 86: Aries

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Sum namque armatus rugosis cornibus horrens,

Herbas arvorum buccis decerpo virentes,

Et tamen astrifero procedens agmine stipor,

Culmina caelorum quae scandunt celsa catervis.

Turritas urbes capitis certamine quasso

Oppida murorum prosternens arcibus altis.

Induo mortales retorto stamine pepli;

Littera quindecima praestat, quod pars domus adsto.

Translation:

For I am dreadful, armed with rough horns,

I gather the fields’ green grasses with my mouth,

And yet, advancing, I am crowded by starry company,

Which ascend the lofty heights of the heavens in groups.

I crush turreted cities with my head’s combat,

Overthrowing the towns of walls with their high strongholds.

I clothe mortals with fabric’s twisted thread;

If the fifteenth letter stands in front, I stand as part of a house.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ram

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 86: Malleus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Non ego de toto mihi corpore vindico vires,

Sed capitis pugna nulli certare recuso:

Grande mihi caput est, totum quoque pondus in illo.

Translation:

I do not claim strength with my whole body,

But in a fight of heads I do not refuse to compete against anyone:

My head is big, also all my weight is in it.

Click to show riddle solution?

Hammer

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 86

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 07 Oct 2019

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 86

Not gonna lie: I’m having trouble getting enthused enough about garlic to write this post. I mean, I love garlic as much as the next person. But can I devote an entire blog post to this love? I guess we’re about to find out…
So, Riddle 86. This nearly impossible-to-solve riddle has in fact been solved since 1865 when F. Dietrich noted that it bears similarities to a 4th/5th-century Latin riddle by the North African poet Symphosius. Symphosius’ Enigma 94 is solved as luscus alium vendens (one-eyed seller of garlic), and it goes a little something like this:
cernere iam fas est quod vix tibi credere fas est:

unus inest oculus, capitum sed milia multa.

qui quod habet vendit, quod non habet unde parabit?

(Leary, page 51)
(Now might you see what you might scarcely believe:

he has one eye but many thousands of heads.

From where will he, who sells what he has, procure what he has not?)

(Leary, page 233)
Like Riddle 86, Symphosius’ riddles turns on the central figure’s one-eyed-ness, in relation his thousands of heads. Unlike Riddle 86, the Latin poem also tells us that this figure is selling something, and that allows us to make the leap from actual heads to heads of garlic. In Symphosius’ riddle collection, the one-eyed seller of garlic follows a riddle about a gouty soldier, so there’s a link between folks who travel – whether soldier or pedlar (Leary, page 233). This collection’s editor, T. J. Leary, also notes that the luscus, or one-eyed man, “was commonly the subject of jokes” (page 234). Leary goes on: “His ‘low-status’ disability [in contrast to soldier whose gout was result of rich living] aside, the luscus would have been looked down on too for being a hawker […]; and he would have been despised the more for hawking garlic, since this was traditionally a poor man’s food” (page 234). And so, the riddle expresses “amazement that someone who has just one eye in his own head sells all the heads of garlic he possesses and so denies himself the only hope he has, scant though it is, since heads of garlic do not possess eyes, of procuring a second from one of them” (page 234). So, there’s a lot going on here with regard to both disability and class. This Latin riddle punches down, not up.
Harvesting garlic in the 15th-century Tacuinum sanitatis, a Latin translation of the 11th-century Arabic medical treatise called Taqwīm as‑Siḥḥa by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad. Image from Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Latin 9333, fol. 23, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
But a lot of this context is lost in the Old English version. Robert DiNapoli notes that “barring the egregiously odd detail of the twelve hundred heads, this riddle offers no more than a wholly unremarkable description of a one-eyed man, almost prosaic in its catalogue of basic features of the human body” (page 453). This man also isn’t depicted in the act of selling. Instead, he’s seen approaching wise men in conversation. Wise men are frequently invited in the last lines of the Exeter Book riddles to show off this wisdom by solving them, so perhaps we could even view this character as approaching a group of riddlers. DiNapoli further suggests that the riddle may be taunting us with echoes of the Germanic god Odin, who is well known for both his one-eyed-ness and his tendency to travel widely and engage in contests of wisdom (page 453). But all those thousands of garlic heads would still need explaining in this context. Perhaps the joke is that we think something mysterious is happening before we realise that this is simply a travelling salesman at work.
Photo of an Onion Seller in Heath Street (from ceridwen, via geograph.org.uk) via Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 2.0)
Something that also needs explaining in this Old English riddle’s reception by academics is their tendency to throw around a lot of very loaded terms. “Grotesque” and “monstrous” come up a lot. So does “freakish.” I hope colleagues working in the field of disability studies someday take up the opportunity to unpack this sort of language in relation to Riddle 86, especially given that the central figure is in fact a disabled man with one eye. Sure, it’s the combination of this fact with the list of body-parts that crescendos in its reference to the TWELVE HUNDRED HEADS that spars on accusations of grotesquerie…but using the term “freakish” uncritically seems irresponsible to me in a world that once saw people with disabilities and developmental differences exhibited in freak shows. Check your language, academics.
A desire to over-interpret the twelve-hundred-headed character, who is otherwise simply described according to a list of body-parts, jumps off the page in Craig Williamson’s edition of the riddles: “The sight of old garlic- or onion-sellers lurching many-headed across the Anglo-Saxon marketplace may have been more common to Old English riddle-solvers than it is to us, but presumably not all of those grisly garlic-sellers were one-eyed” (pages 376-7). Nowhere in the riddle is the garlic-seller described as old. Nowhere in the riddle is the garlic-seller described as lurching. Nowhere in the riddle is the garlic-seller described as grisly. This is an over-interpretation based on a great deal of speculation. When presented with what is essentially a numerical puzzle – these body-parts don’t add up! – some folks have desperately attempted to fill in the gaps and make the poem do a lot more than it’s actually doing.
And what it is actually doing is something we still need to think about when it comes to the final line of the poem. Attention to detail is key here! As Jonathan Wilcox notes, the manuscript’s Saga hwæt ic hatte (Say what I am called) is often corrected by scholars to Saga hwæt hio hatte (Say what it is called). Given that the rest of the riddle is in the 3rd-person, the shift to 1st-person is startling: “A character came walking…what am I called?” Does this make any sense? Wilcox argues that this is actually a mock riddle and that ignoring the shift in pronouns “flattens the levels of complexity in this playful poem and misses the possibility that it parodies the very form of the riddle” (page 185). For Wilcox, the riddle’s piling on of body-parts is all a distraction. The “impossibly difficult inferences” are there “precisely because solving the central conundrum is not the point” (p. 187). In the end, the riddle doesn’t ask us to solve the numerical puzzle, but simply to identify the person who is speaking it. Is this is a clever little game on the riddler’s part or a mistake by whoever copied it into the manuscript? We may never know!
Oh the mystery.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading

Dietrich, F. “Die Räthsel des Exeterbuchs: Verfasser; weitere Lösungen.” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, vol. 12 (1865), pages 232-52.

DiNapoli, Robert. “In The Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is a Seller of Garlic: Depth-Perception and the Poet’s Perspective in the Exeter Book Riddles.” English Studies, vol. 81, issue 5 (2000), pages 422-55.

Leary, T. J., ed. Symphosius: The Aenigmata: An Introduction, Text and Commentary. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Wilcox, Jonathan. “Mock Riddles in Old English: Riddles 86 and 19.” Studies in Philology, vol. 93, issue 2 (1996), pages 180-7.

Williamson, Craig, ed. The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977.

Note

The photo at the top of this post (by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga)) is from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 86 latin one-eyed seller of garlic symphosius

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 35 and the Leiden Riddle
Response to Exeter Riddle 39
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 85

Aldhelm Riddle 87: Clipeus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

De salicis trunco, pecoris quoque tergore raso

Componor patiens discrimina cruda duelli.

Semper ego proprio gestantis corpore corpus

Conservabo, viri vitam ne dempserit Orcus.

Quis tantos casus aut quis tam plurima leti

Suscipit in bello crudelis vulnera miles?

Translation:

From the trunk of the willow-tree, also from the cattle’s scraped hide,

Am I composed, awaiting the bloody hazards of war.

I shall always guard the body of my carrier with my own

Body, so that Orcus will not rob the man’s life.

What fierce soldier incurs such losses or so many 

Deadly wounds in battle?

Click to show riddle solution?

Shield

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 87: Pistillus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Contero cuncta simul virtutis robore magno.

Una mihi cervix, capitum sed forma duorum.

Pro pedibus caput est: nam cetera corpore non sunt.

Translation:

I grind all things together with great strength of power.

I have one neck, but the shape of two heads.

There is a head in the place of feet: for there are not other parts for my body.

Click to show riddle solution?

Pestle

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

If you're researching/studying this collection, you should also consult this excellent new edition: T. J. Leary, ed. Symphosius: The Aenigmata, An Introduction, Text and Commentary. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Textual differences in that edition include:

line 3: non sunt > absunt

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Aldhelm Riddle 88: Basiliscus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Callidior cunctis aura vescentibus aethrae

Late per mundum dispersi semina mortis;

Unde horrenda seges diris succrevit aristis,

Quam metit ad scelera scortator falce maligna;

Cornigeri multum vereor certamina cervi.

Namque senescenti spoliabor pelle vetustus

Atque nova rursus fretus remanebo iuventa.

Translation:

Craftier than all those who rely on the air in the sky,

I spread the seeds of death widely throughout the world;

Whence grew a dreadful crop with its fearful harvest,

Which the Fornicator reaps to wicked ends with his malign scythe;

I am very much afraid of contests with the antlered stag.

When aged, I will certainly be spoiled of my decaying skin

And I will continue again, strengthened by my new youth.

Click to show riddle solution?

Serpent

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 88: Strigilis aenea

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Rubida curva capax, alienis humida guttis,

Luminibus falsis auri mentita colorem,

Dedita sudori, modico subcumbo labori.

Translation:

Copper-coloured, curved, capacious, damp with foreign drops,

Counterfeiting through false lights the colour of gold,

Given over to sweat, I succumb to some effort.

Click to show riddle solution?

Bronze Strigil

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Aldhelm Riddle 89: Arca libraria

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Nunc mea divinis complentur viscera verbis

Totaque sacratos gestant praecordia biblos;

At tamen ex isdem nequeo cognoscere quicquam:

Infelix fato fraudabor munere tali,

Dum tollunt dirae librorum lumina Parcae.

Translation:

Now my entrails are filled with divine words 

And all my organs carry sacred books;

And yet from them I cannot learn anything:

Unhappy, I am deprived by fate of such a gift,

Because the dreadful Parcae remove the books’ illumination.

Click to show riddle solution?

Library Chest

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 89: Balneum

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Per totas aedes innoxius introit ignis;

Est calor in medio magnus quem nemo veretur.

Non est nuda domus, sed nudus convenit hospes.

Translation:

Through the whole house a harmless fire enters;

There is a great heat in the middle which no one fears.

The house is not bare, but a nude guest is appropriate.

Click to show riddle solution?

Bath-house

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Exeter Riddle 90

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Fri 30 Oct 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 90

This is the famous Latin Riddle – the only non-Old English poem in the Exeter Book!

Original text:

Mirum videtur mihi –           lupus ab agno tenetur; 

obcu[..]it agnus *  *  *(1)           et capit viscera lupi. 

Dum starem et mirarem,           vidi gloriam magnam: 

duo lupi stantes           et tertium tribulantes – 

quattuor pedes habebant;           cum septem oculis videbant.

Translation:

It seems wondrous to me – a wolf is held by a lamb; 

the lamb lay down and grasps the wolf’s innards. 

While I stood and marveled, I saw a great wonder: 

two wolves standing and afflicting a third – 

they had four feet; they saw with seven eyes.

Click to show riddle solution?

Lamb of God, Web and Loom, Candelabra

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 129v of The Exeter Book.

The above Latin text is based on this edition, where it is numbered Riddle 86: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 117-18.

The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), page 240.

Textual Note:

(1) Something seems to be missing here in terms of sense, but there is no damage to the manuscript at this point (only obcu[..]it is damaged by a burnt spot right above the word). Editors frequently sub in a suggested missing word – most commonly rupi (on a stone) because of the rhyme with lupi.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles solutions latin riddle 90

Aldhelm Riddle 90: Puerpera geminas enixa

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Sunt mihi sex oculi, totidem simul auribus hausi,

Sed digitos decies senos in corpore gesto;

Ex quibus ecce quater denis de carne revulsis

Quinquies at tantum video remanere quaternos.

Translation:

I have six eyes, at the same time as I perceive sound with exactly that many ears,

But I carry sixty fingers and toes on my person;

And yet behold, with forty of them torn from my flesh,

I see that only twenty remain.

Click to show riddle solution?

Woman Birthing Twins

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 90: Tessera

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Dedita sum semper voto, non certa futuri.

Iactor in ancipites varia vertigine casus

Nunc ego maesta malis, nunc rebus laeta secundis.

Translation:

I am always dedicated to a vow, not certain of the future.

I am thrown into the varied whirling of twofold chance.

Now I am sorrowful because of misfortune, now I am happy because of good fortune.

Click to show riddle solution?

A die

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

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Aldhelm Riddle 91: Palma

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Omnipotens auctor, nutu qui cuncta creavit,

Mi dedit in mundo tam "victrix" nomen habendum.

Nomine nempe meo florescit gloria regum,

Martiribus necnon, dum vincunt proelia mundi,

Edita caelestis prensant et praemia vitae;

Frondigeris tegitur bellantum turma coronis

Et viridi ramo victor certamine miles.

In summo capitis densescit vertice vellus,

Ex quo multiplicis torquentur tegmina pepli;

Sic quoque mellifluis escarum pasco saginis

Nectare per populos tribuens alimenta ciborum.

Translation:

The omnipotent author, who created all things by his will,

Gave me the name "victorious" to have in the world. 

Of course the glory of the kings flourishes in my name,

And also for the martyrs, who, when they win the world’s battles,

Take hold of the elevated rewards of celestial life;

The crowd of warriors is covered with leafy crowns

And the soldier, the victor in the contest, with a green branch.

At the top point of my head grows foliage,

From which the coverings of different fabrics are woven;

So too I sustain with the honeyed nourishment of food,

Bestowing items of food among the people with my nectar.

Click to show riddle solution?

Palm

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 91: Pecunia

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Terra fui primo, latebris abscondita terrae;

Nunc aliud pretium flammae nomenque dederunt,

Nec iam terra vocor, licet ex me terra paretur.

Translation:

First I was earth, concealed in the earth’s hiding places;

Now flames have given me another value and name,

I am not called earth now, although earth is obtained through me.

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Money

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

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Aldhelm Riddle 92: Farus editissima

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Rupibus in celsis, qua tundunt caerula cautes

Et salis undantes turgescunt aequore fluctus,

Machina me summis construxit molibus amplam,

Navigeros calles ut pandam classibus index.

Non maris aequoreos lustrabam remige campos

Nec ratibus pontum sulcabam tramite flexo

Et tamen immensis errantes fluctibus actos

Arcibus ex celsis signans ad litora duco

Flammiger imponens torres in turribus altis,

Ignea brumales dum condunt sidera nimbi.

Translation:

On the towering rocks, where the sea beats the rocks

And the salt-waves swell the floods with the sea,

Apparatus constructed me, extensive, with the highest structure,

So that I, a revealer, might disclose the navigable paths to fleets.

I do not traverse the watery fields of the sea with oar 

Nor do I plow through the sea on a curved path with ships

But nevertheless I lead drifting ships impelled by the immense waves

To shore, giving out signals from my lofty summit;

The flame-bearer lights the firebrands in the high towers,

While the winter clouds conceal the fiery stars.

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A Very Tall Lighthouse

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

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Symphosius Riddle 92: Mulier quae geminos pariebat

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Plus ego sustinui quam corpus debuit unum.

Tres animas habui, quas omnes intus habebam;

Discessere duae, sed tertia paene peregit.

Translation:

I have sustained more than one body should.

I had three souls, all of which I had inside;

Two left, but the third one almost finished too.

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Mother who had twins

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

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Aldhelm Riddle 93: Scintilla

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Quae res in terris armatur robore tanto

Aut paribus fungi nitatur viribus audax?

Parva mihi primo constant exordia vitae,

Sed gracilis grandes soleo prosternere leto,

Quod letum proprii gestant penetralia ventris.

Nam saltus nemorum densos pariterque frutecta

Piniferosque simul montes cum molibus altos

Truxque rapaxque capaxque feroxque sub aethere spargo

Et minor existens gracili quam corpore scnifes,

Frigida dum genetrix dura generaret ab alvo

Primitus ex utero producens pignora gentis.

Translation:

What thing on earth is equipped of such strength

Or, bold, labors to discharge similar strength?

At first my foundations in life are but little,

But, though meagre, I tend to overthrow the great in ruin,

Which ruin the innermost parts of my womb themselves carry.

For dense regions of forest and likewise thickets

As well as pine-bearing mountains with high mounds

I, savage and greedy and able and aggressive, squander under the heavens,

And with my meagre form I stand smaller than a flea,

When my cold, hard mother brings me from her womb,

Producing from her uterus for the first time the offspring of her race.

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Spark

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 93: Miles podagricus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Bellipotens olim, saevis metuendus in armis,

Quinque pedes habui, quod numquam nemo negavit.

Nunc mihi vix duo sunt; inopem me copia reddit.

Translation:

I was once martial, ferocious and feared in arms,

I had five feet, which no one ever denied.

Now I barely have two: abundance has rendered me helpless.

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Soldier with gout

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

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Aldhelm Riddle 94: Ebulus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Sambucus, in silva putris dum fronde virescit,

Est mihi par foliis; nam glesco surculus arvis

Nigros bacarum portans in fronte corimbos.

Quem medici multum ruris per terga virentem,

Cum scabies morbi pulpas irrepserit aegras,

Lustrantes orbem crebro quaesisse feruntur:

Cladibus horrendae, dum vexat viscera tabo,

Ne virus serpat, possum succurrere, leprae,

Sic olidas hominum restaurans germine fibras.

Translation:

The elder tree, when it grows, putrid, in the woods,

Is like me in its leaves; for I grow as a sprig in the fields,

Carrying black bunches of berries on my brow.

Doctors, when the roughness of disease creeps on to sick skin,

Are said frequently to have sought much of me, 

Growing green, by roaming the world around the back country: 

I am able to bring remedy so that the poison of leprosy, horrendous in its harm

When it irritates the insides with pestilence, does not progress,

Thus restoring fetid bowels with my sprout.

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Wallwort

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 94: Luscus alium vendens

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Cernere iam fas est quod vix tibi credere fas est:

Unus inest oculus, capitum sed milia multa.

Qui quod habet vendit, quod non habet unde parabit?

Translation:

Now it is possible to see what is scarcely possible to believe:

There is one eye, but many thousand heads.

From where will he, who sells what he has, acquire what he does not have?

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One-eyed garlic seller

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

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Aldhelm Riddle 95: Scilla

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Ecce, molosorum nomen mihi fata dederunt

(Argolicae gentis sic promit lingua loquelis),

Ex quo me dirae fallebant carmina Circae,

Quae fontis liquidi maculabat flumina verbis:

Femora cum cruribus, suras cum poplite bino

Abstulit immiscens crudelis verba virago.

Pignora nunc pavidi referunt ululantia nautae,

Tonsis dum trudunt classes et caerula findunt

Vastos verrentes fluctus grassante procella,

Palmula qua remis succurrit panda per undas,

Auscultare procul, quae latrant inguina circum.

Sic me pellexit dudum Titania proles,

Ut merito vivam salsis in fluctibus exul.

Translation:

Behold, the Fates gave me the name of dogs

(Thus does the language of the Argive people express it in speech),

After the songs of frightful Circe deceived me,

She who sullied the streams from the flowing fountain with words:

Thighs as well as shins, calves with both knees, 

The cruel woman removed, joining words.

Fearful sailors now tell of the howling offspring—

When the fleets drive through with oars and cleave the sea,

Sweeping along the vast waves as the storm advances,

And the curved blade of the oar runs through the waves—

That they hear far away, which bay around my loins.

Thus did Titania’s progeny once deceive me,

Such that I deservedly live as an exile in the salt-waves.

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Scylla

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 95: Funambulus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 10 Sep 2022

Original text:

Inter luciferum caelum terrasque iacentes

Aera per medium docta meat arte viator.

Semita sed brevis est, pedibus nec sufficit ipsis.

Translation:

Between light-bearing heaven and the earth lying below

Through mid-air by learned skill the traveller goes.

But the path is narrow, and the feet themselves do not suffice.

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Tight-rope walker

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius