Bern Riddle 58: De luna
NEVILLEMOGFORD
Date: Fri 04 Dec 2020Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 58: De luna
Original text:
Assiduo multas vias itinere currens
Corpore defecta velox conprendo senectam.
Versa vice rursum conpellor ire deorsum
Et ab ima redux trahor conscendere sursum.
Sed cum mei parvum cursus conplevero tempus,
Infantia pars est simul et curva senectus.
Translation:
Running many roads on a regular journey,
swift, I count old age on a declining body.
On the one hand, I am forced to go downwards
and on the other, returning from the depths, I am dragged back up.
But when I have completed the short time of my course,
the measure is at once infancy and crooked old age.
The Moon
Notes:
This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 737-8.
"Rursum" (line 3) is preferred to Streckler's and Glorie's "rerum," as per Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 611, f. 79r.A list of variant readings can be found in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 547.
Tags: latin Bern Riddles