Riddle Ages

Commentary for Bern Riddle 40: De muscipula

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 17 Feb 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 40: De muscipula

I have mixed feelings about this riddle about a mousetrap. On the one hand, I think it is a brilliant read. On the other, I like rodents a lot and so I endorse the use of humane mousetraps, which work just as well as lethal ones. I suppose I am a bit like Chaucer’s prioress in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, who was said to wepe, if that she saugh a mous / Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde (“General Prologue,” lines 144-5). According to Mercedes Salvador-Bello, this riddle begins a long section on miscellaneous things, which continues to the end of the riddles (Salvador Bello, page 263).
Mousetraps are an ancient technology and there are numerous designs. They also featured occasionally in medieval art and literature, usually with reference to the Devil. For example, Augustine described the Cross as a muscipula diaboli (“mousetrap for the devil”) (“Sermon 263,” page 220). On other occasions, the mousetrap is set by the devil to catch unsuspecting souls. But this riddle seems less interested in theology and religious allegory, and more interested in describing the trap itself using paradoxes and cunning wordplay.

“Wood mice are occasionally vagantes (“wanderers”) into human homes. Photograph (by Rasbak) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)”



This riddle starts off with a nice bit of juxtaposition. Lines 1 and 2 use two contrasting past participles—extensa (“extended,” “stretched out”) and soluta (“loosened, unfastened” “solved,”)—to describe how a trap can only work when placed under load or tension. The verb solvere is particularly common in riddles (see Nos. 3, 22, 42 and 50A) because it casts a knowing wink to the idea of solving riddles. Here, it alludes to the mechanism of the trap, but whether the device is based on a spring, torsion, or deadfall is unclear. Line 1 also describes the mice as vagantes (“wanderers”), which is an apt way of describing those tiny rodent “exiles” who wander about the “foreign lands” of the human home. This, along with the reference to vincula (“bonds, chains”) in the same line, recalls Riddle 37’s wandering pepper—a great example of how the Bern riddler uses overlapping ideas and themes in playful ways.
Lines 3 and 4 describe the trap as a hungry predator, who “has no belly” (venter mihi nullus) but has “many mouths” (multa… ora) to feed itself. Perhaps these mouths are holes in a box, each of which has an individual noose or hammer “to catch limbs” (pro membris…tenendi). The final two lines uses the wealth and poverty trope found in earlier riddles on the sheep (No. 22), parchment (No. 24) silkworm (No. 28). The mousetrap tells us that it is unprofitable “if I am hung up in the air” (si pendor ad auras) but wealthy if “I am left stretched out” (si tensa dimittor). This may indicate that the mechanism is only useful when under tension, or it could simply mean that a mousetrap hung up in the air is useless—you could say that this is de-bait-able.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Augustine of Hippo. “Sermon 263. On the Fortieth Day, The Ascension of the Lord.” In Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons (230-272B). Edited and translated by John E. Rotelle. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993. Pages 219-221.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.” In The Riverside Chaucer. Edited by Larry D. Benson & F. N. Robinson. 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pages 23-36.

Salvador-Bello, Mercedes. Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata. Morgantown, West Virginia University Press, 2015.

Scott-Macnab, David. “Augustine’s Trope of the Crucifixion As a Trap for the Devil and Its Survival in the English Middle Ages.” Viator. Volume 46 (2015). Pages 1-20.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 22: De ove
Bern Riddle 24: De membrana
Bern Riddle 28: De serico/bombyce
Bern Riddle 37: De pipere
Bern Riddle 42: De glacie
Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

Bern Riddle 41: De vento

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Tue 01 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 41: De vento

Original text:

Velox curro nascens grandi virtute sonorus;

Deprimo nam fortes, infirmos adlevo sursum.

Os est mihi nullum, dente nec vulnero quemquam,

Mordeo sed cunctos silvis campisque morantes.

Cernere me quisquam nequit aut nectere vinclis;

Macedo nec Liber vicit nec Hercules umquam.

Translation:

Growing up, I run swift and loud with great strength;

I push down the strong and I raise up the weak.

I have no mouth and I do not wound anyone with teeth,

but I bite everyone lingering in the fields and forests.

No one can see me nor chain me up.

The Macedonian never defeated me, nor did Liber, nor Hercules.

Click to show riddle solution?

Wind

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 751.

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 587.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 41: De vento

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 41: De vento

What kind of a riddle-creature is fast and strong, bites without a mouth, raises up the weak, and is more powerful than Hercules? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.




The wind was a popular topic in early medieval scientific works such as Isidore of Seville’s early 7th century De natura rerum and Bede’s early 8th century De natura rerum, both of which drew on a wide range of classical and late antique learning. These texts were often accompanied by diagrams of the twelve winds, such as the one below. The wind was also a popular subject for early medieval riddlers. Aldhelm of Malmesbury wrote a wind riddle (Aldhelm Riddle 2), which begins “no one can see me” (cernere me nulli possunt), before describing how it blows all around the countryside, shattering oaks. And the Exeter Book contains three back-to-back riddles (or one, depending on your perspective) about different kinds of wind—you can read Megan’s commentary on them here.

“Rota of the winds, Walters Art Museum W.73, fol. 1v. Photograph (by Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts) from  Flickr (public domain>).”



Our riddle stresses the wind’s awesome power using several common Bern themes and motifs. Line 1 employs the birth motif to frame the idea that the wind is fast and strong. And Line 2 describes the wind’s power to push down heavy things and lift things up in terms of raising up the weak and humbling the strong. This makes the riddle creature sound rather Christ-like, just as we found with the resurrected cup and grain in Riddles 6 and 12, as well as Riddle 22’s humble sheep. Finally, Lines 4 and 5 recall the multiple mouths of the previous riddle on the mousetrap, and the mention of biting recalls several earlier riddles (see my discussion of this trope in the commentary to Bern Riddle 37).
Line 6 explains that the wind is invisible but more powerful than any human, including some of the strongest men in history, such as “the Macedonian” (i.e. Alexander the Great), Liber (the Roman god of fertility and wine, often used interchangeably with Dionysius), and Hercules. The author cited these three based on a longstanding classical and medieval tradition of attributing a series of conquests of India to them. (Alexander did invade the Indus Valley basin in 326-5 BCE, but the others are entirely mythical.) For example, Pliny the Elder wrote in the 1st century CE that:
Haec est Macedonia, terrarum imperio potita quondam…haec etiam Indiae victrix per vestigia Liberi Patris atque Herculis vagata…


Such is Macedonia, which once won a world-wide, empire… and even roamed in the tracks of Father Liber and of Hercules and conquered India…

—Pliny, Natural History. Book 4, pages 146-7.

Similar associations can be found in a wide range of sources, from classical works by Ovid (The Metamorphoses, pages 180-1) and Seneca (Oedipus, pages 54-5) to the medieval travel works, The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle (Orchard, pages 240-1) and the Liber Monstrorum (Orchard, pages 290-3), that feature in the Nowell codex alongside Beowulf. 
Like many other Bern Riddles, there is a lot of stuff going on in six short lines—they go far beyond the obvious statements about the wind being powerful yet invisible. Perhaps this riddle doesn’t exactly blow me away in the same way that some of the most creative riddles do, but I’m definitely still a big fan.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Liber Monstrorum” and “The Old English Letter from Alexander to Aristotle.” In Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995. Pages 224-317.

Cesario, Marilina. “Knowledge of the weather in the Middle Ages: Libellus de disposicione totius anni futuri.” In Marilina Cesario and Hugh Magennis (eds.), Aspects of Knowledge. Preserving and Reinventing Traditions of Learning in the Middle Ages. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. Pages 53-78.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 1-8. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 42. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Books 3-7. Edited and translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 352. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942.

Seneca the Younger. Oedipus. In Tragedies, Volume II: Oedipus. Agamemnon. Thyestes. Hercules on Oeta. Octavia. Edited and translated by John G. Fitch. Loeb Classical Library 78. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

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

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 40: De muscipula

Bern Riddle 42: De glacie

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Tue 01 Dec 2020

Matching 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.

Click to show riddle solution?

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

Commentary for Bern Riddle 42: De glacie

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 42: De glacie

I like to think that the Bern Riddles are twice as ice as other riddle collections—because they have not one, but two riddles about the frozen stuff! (That is, if Riddle 38 is actually about ice at all!)

“Ice and water. Photograph (by Sharon Mollerus) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY 2.0)”



Our riddle starts off by employing the softness/hardness trope that found in so many of the Bern Riddles, from the sexy pottery in Riddle 1 all the way to the chaste rose in Riddle 53. I am not sure exactly how to explain the “many” (multos) in line 2, but the idea of a thing that cannot be hardened and “makes many soft” sounds like a kind of sexual inuendo-in-reverse. The Early Middle Ages are often depicted in popular culture as a time of solemn religiosity and stern authority, but playful texts like these remind us that they had a lighter (and sexier) side too. I really do think that parts of these riddles are an early medieval version of “that’s what she said.”





Line 3 combines two common riddle tropes (“solving” and kissing) in a single line. The intention is to connect the act of reading riddles with the melting of ice—just as learned readers rejoice when a riddle has been “solved” (soluta), so the ice is “praised with dear kisses” when it has “dissolved” (soluta) into water. The “kisses” (oscula) are the human mouths that drink the water, presumably from Riddle 6’s cup (which also describes drinking as kissing). Line 4 then employs two more common riddling tropes, binding and touching, to describe how the ice can be unpleasantly cold to touch.

“Ice melting. Photograph (by Dingske) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 2.0)”



Lines 5 and 6 are very curious, and I am not entirely sure what they mean. They probably refer to the transition between states of liquidity and solidity, and the “stern creator” (rigidus auctor) could be describing the winter’s cold. However, the references to “beautiful” (pulchra) and “ugly” (turpis) forms are more cryptic. Ice can be terrifyingly ugly for travellers climbing through mountain passes or sailors steering through icebergs. It can also be beautiful in the way that it shimmers and reflects light. Likewise, water can be terrifyingly ugly during a sea storm or a flash flood, and it can be beautiful in its tranquillity. Incidentally, the beautiful/ugly motif also appears in one of my favourite riddles, No. 61, where it describes the stars in a similarly cryptic way.
For me at least, this riddle is a very cool mix of the familiar and the strange. It uses a patchwork of common tropes and motifs, but its workings are quite obscure at times. And that is exactly what you would expect from such a slippery riddle!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

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

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 43: De vermicolis siricis formatis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 43: De vermicolis siricis formatis

Original text:

Innumeros concepta mitto de nido volatus

Corpus et inmensum parvis adsumo de membris.

Mollibus de plumis vestem contexo nitentem

Et texturae sonum aure nec concipit ullus.

Si quis forte meo videtur vellere tectus,

Protinus excussam vestem reicere temptat.

Translation:

Made pregnant, I send various flying creatures from the nest

and I take a huge body from small limbs.

I weave a shining garment from soft strands,

and no one hears any weaving.

If anyone happens to be covered by my wool,

they immediately struggle to cast off my discarded garment.

Click to show riddle solution?

Silkworm

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 752.

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 589.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 43: De vermicolis siricis formatis

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 43: De vermicolis siricis formatis

This is the second silkworm riddle in the Bern collection. Silk was one of the most lucrative commodities in medieval Europe, brought there along the Silk Road from China—you can read a bit more about this in my commentary for Riddle 28. Unfortunately, I also used my one and only silkworm joke for that commentary, so I don’t have any more puns or yarns to spin.
The riddle begins with the childbirth trope that we find so often in Bern. The creature that is speaking throughout the riddle is clearly the silkworm, but Lines 1 and 2 are quite obscure and there are several tricky cruxes. This obscurity could be because the riddler was not familiar with all the details of silk production—although lines 5 and 6 seem to contradict this (see below). Alternatively, it may be that they disguised the meaning very well, or it could be that the lines are corrupt in some way. 

“Silkworms. Photograph (by Małgorzata Miłaszewska) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)”



The first problem is how to understand the word concepta. The usual translation would be “born” or “conceived” (see Riddles 38 & 44), but you could also argue for something more irregular, such as “made pregnant.” However, none of these translations are particularly helpful when it comes to working out what is going on. Secondly, who are the innumeros (“various,” “countless”) creatures who are sent out from the creature’s nest (de nido), and should we translate volatus literally as “fliers,” or figuratively as “swift ones?” Thirdly, how does this all relate to the “huge body” (corpus inmensum) of line 2? 
Although Lines 1 and 2 are difficult, we can assume that they refer to one of the transitions between the insect’s life stages: (1.) the silk moth laying silk eggs, (2.) the eggs hatching into larvae, (3.) the silkworm spinning itself a cocoon, or (4.) the cocooned pupa transforming into a moth. None of these explanations seems to be an exact fit, but my feeling is that stage 4. is the most likely—the “nest” and the “huge body” are the cocoon, and the “flying creatures” are the moths. But I am very open to suggestions—what do you think?

“Silk cocoon. Photograph (by Gerd A.T. Müller) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)”



The remainder of the riddle is far more straightforward. The “shining garment” in Line 3 is the silken cocoon, which the silkworm weaves silently in line 4. The riddle then explains that the discarded woollen garment cannot easily be “cast off” (excussum). This refers to the gluey sericin of the cocoon, which glues the silk fibres together to create the cocoon, making it sticky to touch. This level of detail suggests not only that the riddler knew quite a bit about the silk-making process, but also that they expected their readers to know this too. However, modern day readers may struggle to follow their thread.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

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

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

Original text:

Conspicuum corpus arte mirifica sumpsi;
 
Multis cava modis gemmarum ordine nector.
 
Publicis concepta locis in abdito nascor.
 
Vacua do lucem, referta confero lucrum.
 
Nullum mihi frigus valet nec bruma vilescit,
 
Sed calore semper molli sopita fatigor.

Translation:

I have acquired a remarkable body by wondrous artifice.

Hollow, I am related to the order of gems in many ways.

Conceived in public places, I am born in secret.

Empty, I give light; full, I give wealth.

Cold cannot overcome me, nor can winter cheapen me,

but when lulled to sleep, I am always worn down by a gentle warmth.

Click to show riddle solution?

Pearl

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 752.

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 590.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

Since today’s riddle is about diamonds and pearls, I’m going to begin my commentary with this classic song by Prince.





Our riddle continues the theme of valuable natural commodities from the previous riddle on silk. Although the named solution is “pearl” (margarita), the mollusc shell has a voice too. The Latin for pearl and oyster (ostrea) are both feminine, fitting the gender of the speaker, and the riddle often seems to treat the mollusc and its pearl as the same creature. Examples of dual speakers can be found in a few other riddles, such as Riddle 28, where the silkworm and silk take it in turns to speak.
Since the mid-20th century, humans have farmed pearls on an industrial scale, but before this, the considerable effort required to find a single pearl meant that they were far rarer and more valuable. During the Middle Ages, various myths were used to explain how they were produced, usually involving the collection of “celestial dew,” just as we saw with bees and honey. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century, wrote in his influential Natural History that:
Origo atque genitura conchae sunt haut multum ostrearum conchis differentes. Has ubi genitalis anni stimulavit hora,pandentes se quadam oscitatione impleri roscido conceptu tradunt, gravidas postea eniti, partumque concharum esse margaritas, pro qualitate roris accepti…


[The source and breeding-ground of pearls are not much differing from oyster-shells. These, we are told, when stimulated by the generative season of the year gape open as it were and are filled with dewy pregnancy, and subsequently when heavy are delivered, and the offspring of the shells are pearls that correspond to the quality of the dew received…]

Pliny, Natural History, pages 234-5.

Facts such as these were commonplace in all kinds of encyclopaedias and bestiaries. However, our riddle does not mention these unusual origins–which might seem surprising, given how interested the Bern riddler is with extraordinary birth-stories and encyclopaedic knowledge. 

“An oyster produces a pearl from celestial dew, in an early 13th century bestiary, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 602, folio 34r. Photograph from Digital Bodleian (licence: CC BY-NC 4.0)



The riddle begins with two very straightforward lines. The predominant speaker is the pearl, although the oyster manages to get in a single word at the start of line 2, telling us that it is “hollow” (cava). Interestingly, hollowness crops up in several other riddles, including another aquatic subject, Riddle 32’s sponge. The next line combines two well-loved Bern tropes—birth and secret places—to invert our expectations of both. Unlike in human society, where procreation is typically private, the pearl is conceived in public, yet it is born in secret. 
The oyster speaks throughout line 4, playing upon the similarity between lucem (“light”) and lucrem (“wealth, profit”) to describe the shell when “full” (referta) and “empty” (vacua). It is easy to understand why a “full” oyster brings wealth. But why would an empty shell give light (lux)? The most obvious answer is that this refers to the oyster shell’s highly reflective inner palate, which we often refer to as “mother of pearl” today.

“Oyster and pearl. Photograph (by Manfred Heyde) from  Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)”



The final two lines explain that this creature, unlike others, is not damaged by cold waters or the changing seasons, although it can be “worn down” (fatigari) by a gentle warmth. They are spoken by the oyster, who is telling us how she it can be opened by boiling. Similar themes of warmth and cold also crop up in the final lines of another aquatic riddle, No. 30, which describes the life of a fish.  
There are two things that I really like about this riddle. The first is the sense of symbiosis between the pearl and the oyster—the riddle considers them to be part of the same creature. The second is that the riddle is all about the everyday, rather than the mythical, aspects of the pearl, but it manages to disguise these pearls of wisdom in the most extraordinary ways.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Volume III: Books 8-11. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classics 353. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940.

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

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 45: De terra

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 45: De terra

Original text:

Os est mihi patens crebroque tunditur ictu;
 
Reddo libens omnes escas, quas sumpsero lambens.
 
Nulla mihi fames sitimque sentio nullam,
 
Et ieiuna mihi semper praecordia restant.
 
Omnibus ad escam miros efficio sapores
 
Gelidumque mihi durat per secula corpus.

Translation:

My mouth is open and frequently beaten;
 
I willingly return all the food that I have eaten up.
 
I feel no hunger nor thirst,
 
And yet my belly is always hungry.
 
I add amazing tastes to food for everyone
 
and my cold body lasts throughout the ages.

Click to show riddle solution?

Earth

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 752.

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 591.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 45: De terra

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 45: De terra

“Body and earth” might sound like the name of a yoga retreat or a shower-gel brand, but it is also the theme of this excellently bizarre riddle!
The opening two lines of the riddle depict common agricultural processes as violent and disgusting acts. Line one provides the image of an os… patens (“open mouth”) that is often tunditur ictu (“beaten, stabbed”)—this alludes to the furrow of a field, which is frequently cut up by the plough. This is, in a sense, the “other side” of Exeter Riddle 21, which describes the plough as an orþoncpil (“a skilful spear”). Line 2 then shifts abruptly to the main theme of the riddle—food! The idea of “returning” food that one has already eaten has been chosen to suggest vomiting or defecating. Moreover, the earth tells us sumpsero lambens (literally “I have licked up”) the food, which adds to the somewhat icky feeling of these two lines. However, this all refers to the crops that the earth “returns” from the seeds that it was “fed.”
Lines 3 and 4 set up the apparent paradox of a creature that is and is not hungry and thirsty at the same time. On the one hand, the riddle creature literally feels “neither hunger nor thirst” (nulla…fames… sitimque… nullam), nor indeed any other emotion. On the other, its praecordia (“belly, heart”) always remains ieiuna, an adjective that can mean “barren” or “dry,” as well as “hungry” or “thirsty.” 

“A recently ploughed field, viewed from behind a hedge. Photograph by the author (Neville Mogford).



The riddle then shifts the focus from the earth’s hunger to ours. Keen gardeners will know that different soil types can give different tastes to crops. The riddler knew this too, and they tell us that the creature adds miros sapores (“amazing tastes”) to food. The riddle then closes with another apparent paradox that plays on two senses of “cold body” (gelidum… corpus)—a dead body that lives forever. Perhaps the writer also wants us to compare the human body, which the earth decomposes, to the earth’s enduring body. As we so often find with the Bern riddles, this also looks back to the previous riddle, No. 44, which describes an oyster that endures the cold waters of winter.
In my opinion, Riddle 45 is a very clever little riddle. It takes a loose and vague association between the soil and the human body, and then it runs off with it to all kinds of fantastic places. It certainly manages to cover a lot of ground in six lines!

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 44: De margarita

Bern Riddle 46: De malleo

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 46: De malleo

Original text:

Una mihi toto cervix pro corpore constat,
 
Et duo libenter nascuntur capita collo.
 
Versa mihi pedum vice dum capita currunt,
 
Lenes reddo vias, calle quas tero frequenti.
 
Nullus mihi comam tondet nec pectine versat:
 
Vertice nitenti plures per oscula gaudent.

Translation:

My whole body is one neck,
 
and two heads grow happily from this neck.
 
When my heads are upside down and travel by foot,
 
I make smooth roads, which I rub into a well-used path.
 
No one cuts my hair, nor do they comb it:
 
Many are pleased by the kisses from my shining top.

Click to show riddle solution?

Hammer

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 753.

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 592.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 46: De malleo

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 46: De malleo

This banging riddle uses all kinds of fantastic disguises to describe a very common tool. Several manuscripts mistakenly describe it as a riddle about a pestle (De pistillo), probably because of its similarity to two riddles by Symphosius (Nos. 86 and 87), an unknown writer who wrote 100 influential riddles at some point between the third and fifth centuries. The Bern Riddler was very familiar with them; here he cleverly combines motifs from Symphosius’ riddles on the hammer and the pestle to create an entirely new one. Fellow riddle-lovers, it’s Hammer Time!





The riddle begins by depicting the hammer as if it were a kind of monster, telling us that “My whole body is one neck.” This description borrows heavily from Symphosius’ riddle on the pestle, which tells us that una mihi cervix, capitum sed forma duorum (“I have one head but the appearance of two”). Line 2 goes on to reveal that this giant-necked creature also has two heads—my mental image is of some kind of Pokemon!

“An early medieval hammer head found near Bambury, Oxfordshire. Photograph from  The Portable Antiquities Scheme (licence: CC BY 2.0)”



Lines 3 and 4 are difficult. They borrow the idea of head becoming feet from Symphosius’ pestle riddle, which explains that pro pedibus caput est (“there is a head instead of feet”). However, it took me a long time to work out what was going on, and even longer to figure out how to translate it into idiomatic Modern English. Then it hit me that riddle was not referring to hitting at all, but to splitting, gouging or chiselling. Just like today, hand tools in early medieval Europe came in all kinds of shapes designed for all kinds of specialised tasks and trades. Presumably, one of the two heads of our hammer is an adze, chisel, or claw, which is used “upside down” or “the other way around” (vice versa) to create lenes vias (“smooth roads”) in wood, stone, or metal. In this respect, the riddle also has something in common with other riddles that describe tools that create “paths,” such as ploughs (for example, Exeter Riddle 21) and pens (for example, Bern Riddle 51).
The final two lines depart from Symphosius to give us the rather brilliant description of the hammer face as a bald man who has no use for haircuts or combs. The hammer-blows that his “shining top” (vertex nitens) gives out are depicted as kisses, which are pleasing to those craftspeople who use it. This metaphor strikes me as an extremely playful one, which draws upon other Bern riddles involving kisses (5, 6, 35, and 42) and hair (15, 18, 20, 34), and which makes this riddle very memorable. In my humble opinion, the riddler really hit the nail on the head with this one!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Sources for classical and medieval hammers include:

Ulrich, Roger Bradley. Roman Woodworking. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Pages 13-58.

Hinton, David A. & White, Robert. "A Smith's Hoard from Tattershall Thorpe. Lincolnshire: A Synopsis.” Anglo-Saxon England, Volume 22 (1993). Pages 147-66.

Hinton, David A, et alii. A Smith in Lindsey: The Anglo-Saxon Grave at Tattershall Thorpe. London: Routledge, 2017.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 5: De mensa
Bern Riddle 6: De calice
Bern Riddle 15: De palma
Bern Riddle 18: De scopa
Bern Riddle 20: De melle
Bern Riddle 34: De rosa
Bern Riddle 35: De liliis
Bern Riddle 42: De glacie

Bern Riddle 47: De cochlea

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 47: De cochlea

Original text:

Aspera, dum nascor, cute producor a matre
 
Et adulta crescens leni circumdor amictu.
 
Sonitum intacta magnum de ventre produco
 
Et corrupta tacens vocem non profero ullam.
 
Nullus in amore certo me diligit unquam,
 
Nudam nisi tangat vestemque tulerit omnem.

Translation:

I am born from my mother with hard skin,
 
and as a growing adult, I am surrounded by a soft cloak.
 
Intact, I make a great noise from my belly,
 
and when damaged, I am silent and I produce no voice.
 
No one ever truly loves me
 
unless they touch me when I am naked, having taken away all my clothing.

Click to show riddle solution?

Sea-snail

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 753.

The putative title ("De cochlea") is taken from Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 593.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 47: De cochlea

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 47: De cochlea

Although this riddle appears in manuscripts with the title De castanea (“About the chestnut”), it is probably more of a chestnot. In his 1968 edition of the riddles, Glorie amends it to De cochlea (“About the snail”), with some justification. For what it is worth, I agree with him—I think that it has been confused with Riddle 48, which really is about a chestnut (well, probably, anyway!). However, there are issues with both solutions. Don’t think that the Exeter Book Riddles are the only medieval riddles that need solving!
Line 1 tells us that the riddle creature is “born with hard skin” (aspera produci, Line 1), which can be applied to both snails and chestnuts, at least to a certain degree. But the reference to a “soft cloak” (lenis amictus) is a bit more problematic. The body of a snail is soft, but the noun amictus, which can mean cloak or clothing more generally, suggests an outer layer. At a push, the spiky, protective cupule of a chestnut could also be called soft. However, neither solution seems to fit particularly well. 

“The common whelk is found on coasts around northern Europe. Photograph (by MertildaA) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0)”



The sonitus magnus (“great noise”) produced “from the belly” (de ventre) in Lines 3 and 4 is jokingly intended to sound like a rumbling tummy or flatulence, but it also provides the most evidence for the snail solution. Snails themselves do not make any great noise. (Although gastropods can produce tiny squeaks, grunts, and munching sounds, these are barely audible to the human ear.) The more likely explanation is that the author was referring to the shell of a marine snail, also known as a conch. Various kinds of shell can be modified to create a conch trumpet. When intacta (“intact”), the shell can be blown just like a horn; when corrupta (“damaged”), it cannot be played. This reminds me somewhat of the horn of Exeter Riddle 14, which calls warriors to hilde (“to battle”) and to wine (“to their wine”). Alternatively, the “great noise” could refer to the resonance of the shell when placed against the ear, which gives rise to the myth that one can hear the sea when doing so. I should also point out that Thomas Klein has taken Riddle 47 as evidence of southern European origin (Klein, page 404). There are plenty of marine gastropods in British waters, and whelk shells can grow to a moderate size. I don’t know if they are large enough for conch-blowing, but if you listen, you just might be able to hear the sea in them.





The final two lines could apply to either the chestnut or the snail—the idea seems to be that the riddle creature is enjoyed by humans when its outer layer is removed, presumably to be eaten. They also have sexual connotations—you cannot really call it innuendo, since innuendo is usually oblique, whereas the riddle is very explicit that this creature cannot truly be loved unless it is naked (nuda) and unclothed. In doing so, it recalls the table of Riddle 5 and the parchment of Riddle 24, both of which are also stripped of clothing. 
If this riddle is about snails, as I believe it is, then it certainly manages to avoid all the clichés—it compares favourably with the 5th century riddle-writer, Symphosius’ riddle on the same subject, which begins with the hackneyed lines, Porto domum mecum (I carry my own home…”). You could say that Bern Riddle 47 is pretty spe-shell!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Klein, Thomas. “Pater Occultus: The Latin Bern Riddles and Their Place in Early Medieval Riddling.” Neophilologus 103 (2019), 339-417, page 415.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Exeter Riddle 14
Bern Riddle 5: De mensa
Bern Riddle 24: De membrana
Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

Original text:

Quattuor has ego conclusa gero figuras,
 
Pandere quas paucis deposcit ratio verbis:
 
Humida sum sicca, subtili corpore crassa,
 
Dulcis et amara, duro gestamine mollis.
 
Dulcis esse nulli possum nec crescere iuste,
 
Nisi sub amaro duroque carcere nascar.

Translation:

In total, I bear these four aspects,
 
which logic requires to be unfolded in a few words:
 
I am wet and dry, fat with a slim body,
 
bitter and sweet, and soft with a hard outfit.
 
I cannot be sweet to anyone, nor can I grow properly,
 
unless I am born within a hard, bitter prison.

Click to show riddle solution?

Chestnut

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 753.

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 594.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Mon 01 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

Unlike the previous riddle, this one really is an old chestnut—because it is about one! It has a vibe and an organisation that strikes me as unusual for the Bern Riddles: it begins with a framed, metatextual opening (lines 1-2), then describes four pairs of contrary attributes across four half-lines (lines 3-4), before summarising this again in a different way (lines 5-6).

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



The Exeter Book Riddles often talk about themselves as riddles, and they frequently challenge the reader to saga hwæt ic hatte (“say what I am called”). Other collections do this too, albeit less often. For example, Tatwine’s riddle on the rays of the sun (No. 40) ask: plausu, quid sum, pandite sophi (“unfold with applause wise ones, what I am”). The Bern Riddles rarely do this, but Riddle 48 is an exception—it tells us that “logic” (ratio) requires the riddle’s solution to be revealed “in a few words” (paucis… verbis). 
Lines 3 and 4 are comprised of four binary pairs, all of which are solved in the same way. They ask us what is wet and dry, fat and slim, bitter and sweet, and soft and hard. The solution for all four is that the first word refers to the soft inner flesh of the nut, and the second to its hard skin, which the riddle describes as a gestamen (“outfit,” “burden,” “vehicle”).

“Cooking chestnuts, in a 15th century French copy of the Tacuinum Sanitatis (Bibliothèque Municipale Rouen, Leber 1088). Photograph from Wikimedia Commons (public domain)”



The final lines revisit two of the ideas already discussed: sweetness and bitterness, and hardness. They then add two new themes, growth and imprisonment, using these to play gently upon the meanings of dulcis (“sweet,” “pleasant”), durus (“hard,” “stern”) and amarus (“bitter-tasting,” “harsh,” “awful”), asking how something so delightful can grow in a severe and terrible prison.
At this point, I should get it off my chest that this is nut one of my favourite riddles—although perhaps you might disagree. It manages to pack a lot of ideas within a very tight structure, but it also lacks the eclectic creativity that makes the Bern riddles so unique. However, it does raise some interesting questions about authorship. Is it so different that it must have been written by a different author? I am not really convinced that it is different in every respect, since it shares quite a bit of core vocabulary with others in the collection (conclusa, figuras, humida, sicca, mollis, dulcis, crescere, nascor). But a lot more work needs to be done on the authorship of the Bern Riddles before we can arrive at a proper answer!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Klein, Thomas. “Pater Occultus: The Latin Bern Riddles and Their Place in Early Medieval Riddling.” Neophilologus 103 (2019), 339-417, page 415.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Related Posts:
Exeter Riddle 14
Bern Riddle 5: De mensa
Bern Riddle 24: De membrana
Bern Riddle 48: De castanea

Bern Riddle 49: De pluvia

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 49: De pluvia

Original text:

Mirantibus cunctis nascens infligo querelas.
 
Efficior statim maior a patre qui nascor.
 
Me gaudere nullus potest, si terrae coaequor;
 
Superas me cuncti laetantur carpere vias.
 
Inproba amara diffundo pocula totis,
 
Et videre quanti volunt tantique refutant.

Translation:

As I arise, I force complaints from everyone who wonders at me.
 
I am born and immediately become greater than my father.
 
No one can praise me if I am level with the earth;
 
everyone is happy when I take high roads.
 
When I am violent, I pour out bitter cups upon all,
 
and as many want to see me as despise me.

Click to show riddle solution?

Rain

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 754.

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 595.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 49: De pluvia

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 49: De pluvia

Like many people living in the U.K., I have a complex emotional relationship with the rain. When the weather is wet and dreary, I moan about how miserable it is; when the plants in the garden are scorched and hosepipes are banned, I pray for rain. This riddle is all about our contradictory human feelings about rain.

“Rain falling on twigs. Video (by Shishma) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC0 1.0)”



Medieval writers had a reasonably good understanding of the water cycle, although they often mistook the process of rainfall (i.e., the sun warms the air, the water vapour rises and cools, and thus condenses into rain) with the cause (i.e., the sun’s heat). For example, Isidore of Seville, writing at the beginning of the seventh century, told his readers that:
…aquae maris per tenuissimos vapores in aere suspensae paulatim concrescunt ibique igne solis decoctae in dulcem pluviarum saporem vertuntur.


[…the waters of the sea, hanging in the air as the thinnest mists, gradually condense; boiled there by the sun’s fire, they are turned into the sweet nectar of the rains.]

–Isidore, De natura rerum (ed. Becker), chapter 33, page 59.

The rain cycle was also the topic of a riddle (No. 9) by the late antique riddler, Symphosius, which explains: De caelo cecidi… sed sinus excepit qui me simul ipse remittit (“From the heavens I plunge… but the same bosom receives me which sends me back at the same time”). Today’s riddle, Bern 49, is rather different. It does touch upon some of the natural features of rain, but its primary focus is on how it makes humans feel.
It begins by asking us to consider how a natural process that is so inherently wonderous and spectacular can also be a source of unhappiness, explaining that the rain “forces complaints” (infligit querelas) from the very same people who are "marvelling” (mirans) at it. Clearly, we should spend less time grumbling and more time singing in the rain!
The Bern Riddles often challenge us to explain a riddle-creature’s parentage. In line 2, we are told that the creature is maior (“greater, older”) than her father as soon as she is born. The parent cannot be the feminine nubes (“cloud”) or the neuter nouns mare (“sea”) and caelum (“sky”). Possible candidates include aether (“sky”) and sol (“sun”), but I prefer vapor (“mist, vapour”)—this allows us to explain the “greater form” as the physical difference between water as gas and as liquid.  

“Two people in a rainstorm in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. Photo (by Tomas Castelazo) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)”



Lines 3 and 4 continue the theme of contrasting human emotions, comparing those unhappy occasions when the rain is “level with the earth” (coaequatur terra) with those happy ones when the rain takes “high roads” (superas vias). The obvious explanation is that the former refers to lowland flooding and the latter to rainfall on higher ground, where flooding is less likely. The riddle then closes with the depiction of rainfall as an inproba* (“violent, wicked, immoral”) force that pours “bitter cups” (amara pocula) over everyone, but who is nevertheless welcomed by many. I would not suggest that you try this trick in your local pub or café!
I have to say that I really like the message of this clever little riddle. Next time the raindrops start falling on my head, I will try to remember that rain might bring the blues, but it also keeps us alive. I hope that you enjoyed this riddle, weather you like the rain or not!


*Most manuscript copies of this riddle give the masculine form of this adjective (inprobus), but this does not agree with the grammatical gender of the riddle subject (pluvia).

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Isidore of Seville. De natura rerum. Edited by Gustav Becker. Berlin: Weidmann, 1857. Available here. [Note: There are several different editions of Isidore’s De natura rerum. Most scholars use the Latin edition by Fontaine, but, because of the library closures during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020-1, all page numbers in this commentary are for the older edition by Becker instead.]

——Isidore de Seville: Traité de la Nature. Edited by Jacques Fontaine. Bordeaux: Férét, 1960.

——On the Nature of Time. Edited and translated by Calvin B. Kendall & Faith Wallis. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016.

Symphosius, “Riddle 9” in The Aenigmata: An introduction, Text, and Commentary. Edited by T. J. Leary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Pages 40 and 79-81.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Bern Riddle 50: De vino

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 50: De vino | Commentary for Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

Original text:

Innumeris ego nascor de matribus unum,
 
Genitum qui nullum vivum relinquo parentem.
 
Multa me nascente subportant vulnera matres,
 
Quarum mihi mors est potestas data per omnes.
 
Laedere non possum, me si quis oderit, umquam
 
Et iniqua reddo me quoque satis amanti.

Translation:

Single, I am born from countless mothers,
 
and when created, I leave no living parent behind.
 
As I am born, my mothers receive many wounds,
 
and their death gives me power over everyone.
 
I cannot ever hurt anyone if they hate me,
 
and I also harm those who love me well enough.

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 754.

Line 1 follows the preferred reading in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 596.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 50: De vino | Commentary for Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

Original text:

Multimodo matris divellor opere membris
 
Et truncata multum reddor de minimo maior.
 
Fateor intacta firmis consistere plantis,
 
Opera nullius virgo momenti relinquo.
 
Solida disiungor, rursum soluta reformor,
 
Quae secura meis creduntur liquida membris.

Translation:

I am torn apart from the limbs of my mother in many ways
 
and, mutilated, I am remade very large from very tiny.
 
When whole, I confess that I am made from firm shoots,
 
And as a virgin, I leave behind works of no importance.
 
When solid, I am divided, and when loose, I am reshaped again.
 
I am trusted to keep liquid safe in my limbs.

Click to show riddle solution?

Papyrus sheet

Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 754.

The putative title ("De charta") and Line 6 follow Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 597.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 50: De vino

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 50: De vino
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

Wine was a popular subject for early medieval Latin riddlers. You could say that grape minds think alike! There are two other Bern Riddles on grapes (13) and wine (63), and Symphosius wrote two wine riddles (Nos. 82 and 83), Aldhelm wrote riddles on a wine cask (78) and wine goblet (80), and the Lorsch riddler wrote a riddle about a cup of wine (5). If we believe what we read, wine was also a popular drink with at least one riddler. Symphosius, writing at some point between the third and fifth centuries, tells us that he told riddles during a Saturnalian party cum streperet late madidae facundia linguae (“whilst the eloquence of a tipsy tongue rambles extensively” (Symphosius, page 39)).

“A cellarer sampling wine, from British Library MS Sloane 2435, folio 44v. Photo from Wikimedia Commons (public domain).”



Lines 1, 2, and 3 combine the motifs of the unconventional birth and parental self-sacrifice that we have seen in previous riddles. They look back to Riddle 13, which described grapes as the children of the vine, who are then killed to produce wine. Here, the grapes are presented as the “countless mothers” (innumerae matres), who are killed after receiving “many wounds” (multa vulnera) during the crushing stage of the winemaking process. Only through the “death” of many grapes can the wine be born.
Lines 4, 5, and 6 shift the focus to the power that the wine has over those who drink it. This is a common trope in riddles about alcohol. Riddles are frequently interested in temporarily overthrowing and subverting the status quo. Because wine has the power to temporarily overcome the faculties of the humans who chose to consume it, this makes it the perfect riddle subject. For example, in Riddle 13, excessive drunkenness becomes a form of revenge for the dead grapes– in my commentary, I punningly called it “the wrath of grapes.” Riddle 50 continues to play on this theme, explaining that the wine can only “harm” (iniqua reddere) those who love it, but that it has no power over everyone else. Thus, the story of revenge from the previous riddle is itself turned on its head. I have said in a previous commentary that the Bern Riddles love to talk to each other. We often think of riddles as monologues—a single speaker gives us clues about its identity—but Riddle 50 shows that they are frequently at their best when read as a dialogue. Anyway, what a corking riddle!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Aenigma Laureshamensia [Lorsch Riddle] 5” in Tatuini Opera Omnia. Edited by Maria De Marco. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 133. Turnholt: Brepols, 1958. Page 351.

Aldhelm of Malmesbury, “Enigmata 78 and 80.” In Rudolph Ehwald (ed.), Aldhelmi Opera, MGH Auctrorum antiquissimorum 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919. Pages 127-29. Available here.

Klein, Thomas. “Pater Occultus: The Latin Bern Riddles and Their Place in Early Medieval Riddling.” Neophilologus 103 (2019), 339-417, page 404.

Symphosius, “Preface” in The Aenigmata: An introduction, Text, and Commentary. Edited by T. J. Leary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Page 39.

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

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 13: De vite
Bern Riddle 63: De vino

Commentary for Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 50: De vino
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 50A: De charta

I had a pun saved up for this commentary, but unfortunately it was too tearable to use. Feel free to groan!
With that fantastic pun out of the way, I can introduce the second riddle on papyrus in the collection. The first, Riddle 27, focused on the plant and its use as a lamp wick, whereas this one is all about the use of papyrus as a writing material. It only appears in one copy, a 9th century Italian manuscript that also contains riddles by Symphosius and Aldhelm (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Philipps 1825).





As I explained in my commentary to Riddle 24, parchment was the preeminent writing material during the early European Middle Ages. Paper made from wood was used prolifically in China from the 4th century CE, and it had spread to the Islamic Middle East and North Africa by the 8th century, but it was not produced in Europe until the first paper mills were built in Spain in the 12th century. Papyrus was used extensively by the ancient Romans and Greeks, but it was gradually replaced by parchment. Pliny, writing in the 1st century CE, gave a detailed explanation of papyrus production. He summarises it thus:
Texitur omnis madente tabula Nili aqua: turbidus liquor vim glutinis praebet. in rectum primo supina tabulae schida adlinitur longitudine papyri quae potuit esse resegminibus utrimque amputatis, traversa postea crates peragit. premitur ergo prelis, et siccantur sole plagulae atque inter se iunguntur, proximarum semper bonitatis deminutione ad deterrimas.


Paper of all kinds is ‘woven’ on a board moistened with water from the Nile, muddy liquid supplying the effect of glue. First an upright layer is smeared on to the table, using the full length of papyrus available after the trimmings have been cut off at both ends, and afterwards cross strips complete the latticework. The next step is to press it in presses, and the sheets are dried in the sun and then joined together, the next strip used always diminishing in quality down to the worst of all.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 13, pages 143-4.

Isidore of Seville, writing in the early seventh century, also included a much shorter description of papyrus sheets in his Etymologies (Isidore, page 141). As we will see, it is possible that the riddle-writer drew on Isidore or Pliny when constructing this riddle.
The first two lines of the riddle describe the processing of the papyrus as an extremely violent act of destruction, which nevertheless results in the creation of something new. First, the speaker is “torn apart” (divelli) from the limbs of her mother (note that papyrus can be a masculine or feminine noun), just as the pith is stripped from the papyrus plant. Then she is “mutilated” (truncata), as the pith is cut lengthwise into strips. Finally, she is reassembled into something “larger” (maior); this alludes to the gluing together of the strips to create a papyrus sheet. 

“A papyrus sheet of the Gospel of Matthew. Probably from Egypt, 3rd or 4th century. Photo (by University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Library) from Wikimedia Commons (public domain).”




Lines 3 and 4 juxtapose the two states of the papyrus, as a plant and as a sheet, which they link together with the idea of virginity. The plant-mother is intacta (“whole, intact, virgin”) when she has not yet been stripped of its pith; the sheet is virgo (“virgin”) when she has not yet been written on. Line 5 continues this theme, framing the stripping of the papyrus pith as a transition from wholeness to division, and the gluing of the cut papyrus sheets as a movement back to wholeness again.
The final line, which mentions a “liquid” (liquida) that the papyrus sheet keeps “secure” (secura) in its “limbs” (membra), refers to papyrus’ absorbent properties, and particularly in respect of the ink that it holds on its surface. It may be a reference to Isidore’s note that papyrus sheets “drink liquid” (Etymologies, page 141). Or it may have in mind a remark by Pliny that “on account of the sponginess of the papyrus, it [i.e., the papyrus strip] sucks up the ink” (glutinamentis taenea fungo papyri bibula (Pliny, pages 146-7)).

“Cyperus papyrus in Parc floral de Paris. Photograph (by Liné1) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC0 1.0)”



I think it is fair to say that this riddle is rather sedate and transparent when compared to many other Bern Riddles. It focuses on the process of constructing the papyrus sheet, which it describes in terms of violent birth, separateness, and wholeness. Since it only appears in one manuscript, we are entitled to ask whether it truly belongs to the collection. Given that it uses the same vocabulary and themes found in other riddles, I think that it probably does. For example, the verb reddere (“to return”) in line 2 looks back to the final line from the previous riddle. Likewise, the phrase firmis plantis (“with firm shoots or feet”) is also used in Riddle 10 to describe a ladder, and this also prefigures the reference to plantae in the next riddle. However, although it probably does belong in the collection, we should not paper over the differences either!

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.

Pliny.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Volume III: Books 8-11. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classics 353. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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Bern Riddle 24: De membrana
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Bern Riddle 51: De alio

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 51: De alio

Original text:

Multiplici veste natus de matre producor
 
Nec habere corpus possum, si vestem amitto.
 
Meos, unde nascor, in venre fero parentes,
 
Vivo nam sepultus, vitam et inde resumo.
 
Superis eductus nec umquam crescere possum,
 
Dum natura caput facit succedere plantis.

Translation:

I am born from a mother, I am made with a complex garment,
 
and I cannot have a body if I lose my clothing.
 
I carry my parents, who created me, in my belly,
 
for I live buried and come back to life there.
 
Once born, I can can never grow high
 
as long as nature puts my head under my feet.

Click to show riddle solution?

Garlic

Notes:

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

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 598.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

Commentary for Bern Riddle 51: De alio

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 31 Mar 2021

Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 51: De alio

How to sum up this riddle in a song? After a lot of thought, the best that I could come up with was: “It’s getting hot in here / So take off all your cloves…” Yes, I know. I’m a punning genius...





Although this riddle doesn’t have a title in its manuscripts, the solution is almost certainly garlic. Garlic was a common foodstuff and medicinal ingredient in the Mediterranean world from classical times. Famously, the poet Horace was not a fan—he wrote a verse that compared the plant to hemlock and other deadly poisons (“Epode 3,” pages 278-9)! During the European Middle Ages, garlic was used in a wide variety of sauces, and monks often grew it in their medicinal gardens. Cultivated garlic was also known in England, where it was referred to as garleac, which is a compound of gar (“spear”) and leac (“leek”). 
Garlic features in two other riddles: Symphosius’ Riddle 95 and Exeter Riddle 86. Both describe a one-eyed garlic seller as a creature with thousands of heads—you can read Megan’s commentary on these extraordinary riddles here. As we will see, the Bern riddler was probably familiar with Symphosius’ riddle.

“Garlic clove. Photograph (by Thamizhpparithi Maari) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: BY SA 4.0)”



The riddle begins with three wonderful sub-riddles, each of which relates to a different part of the plant. We are asked to name the mother and the “complex garment” (multiplex vestis), and we are also expected to explain the cryptic reference to its body in line 2. The mother is the garlic plant. Although the Latin word for garlic, alium, is neuter, herba (“plant, herb”) is a feminine noun and plants are described as mothers in several other riddles. The garment is the clove, which holds the individual bulbs together—thus, the garlic can be said to lose its “body” when it is without its clothing.
As with so many of the Bern riddles, Riddle 51 subverts the image of childbirth in an unexpected way, which it challenges us to explain. In line 3, the child is said to carry its parents in its belly. This refers to the bulbs, which will themselves grow into new parent-plants when buried in line 4. The image of something buried that will later come back to life also hints at the Resurrection of Christ, just as we found in Riddles 6, 12, 13 and 20.

“Harvesting garlic in a 15th century French copy of the Tacuinum Sanitatis (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9333, folio 23). Photograph from Wikimedia Commons (public domain)”



You may remember how “heads became feet” for the hammer of Riddle 46. Something similar happens here: in lines 5 and 6, the garlic is prevented from “growing high” (superis crescere) because its “head” (caput) is placed under its “feet” (plantae). This plays on the fact that the low growing “shoots” (plantae) of the garlic are above ground, whereas the clove grows below it. It may also have Symphosius’ garlicy reference to “many thousands of heads” (capitum… milia multa) in mind. 
In my opinion, you would have to be a vampire to dislike this riddle! The great thing about it, and about the Bern collection generally, is that a very ordinary thing can be depicted in such creative, unusual, and subversive ways. After reading this riddle, you can never look at garlic in the same way again!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Adamson, Melitta Weiss Adamson. Food in Medieval Times. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004.

Horace, “Epode 3”. In Odes and Epodes. Edited and translated by Niall Rudd. Loeb Classical Library 33. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Rivlin, Richard S. “Historical Perspective on the Use of Garlic.” The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 131, 2001. Pages 951–954.

Symphosius, “Riddle 95” in The Aenigmata: An introduction, Text, and Commentary. Edited by T. J. Leary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). Page 51.

Tags: latin Bern Riddles

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