RIDDLE POSTS BY TAG: 'LATIN'

Tatwine Riddle 17: De scyrra

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Wed 05 Jan 2022
Original text:

Celsicolae nascor foecunda matris in alvo,
Quae superas penitus sedes habitare solescit.
Sum petulans agilisque fera, insons, corporis astu.
Ardua, ceu pennis, convecta cacumina scando,
Veloci vitans passu discrimina Martis.

Translation:

I am born from the fecund womb of a mother who dwells on high,
Who tends to live inside the upper settlements.
I am an insolent and agile creature, innocent of bodily guile.
I climb, as if on wings, the lofty vaulted peaks,
Avoiding by speed in step the dangers of Mars.

Click to show riddle solution?
On the squirrel


Tags: riddles  latin  Tatwine 

Aldhelm Riddle 17: Perna

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 12 Mar 2022
Original text:

E geminis nascor per ponti caerula concis
Vellera setigero producens corpore fulva;
En clamidem pepli necnon et pabula pulpae
Confero: sic duplex fati persolvo tributum.

Translation:

From twin shells I am born in the blue waters of the sea,
Producing golden pelts from my bristly body.
See, I confer cloaks from my fabric and also food 
From my flesh: thus I pay my two-fold debt to fate.

Click to show riddle solution?
Mussel


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 17: Aranea

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 01 Jul 2022
Original text:

Pallas me docuit texendi nosse laborem.
Nec pepli radios poscunt nec licia telae;
Nulla mihi manus est, pedibus tantum omnia fiunt.

Translation:

Pallas taught me to know the work of weaving:
My garments do not require shuttles, nor my threads a loom;
I do not have hands, by my feet alone is everything done.

Click to show riddle solution?
Spider


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 2: pepli > telae


Tags: riddles  solutions  latin  symphosius 

Commentary for Bern Riddle 17: De cribro

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 22 Jan 2021
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 17: De cribro

Sometimes riddle-reading can be very inten-sieve! Today’s riddle is about a sieve—not a kitchen sieve, but an agricultural one.

The opening two lines of this riddle are a great example of riddling disguise and misdirection, describing the sieve as if it were a loquacious Mr Ed. Line 1 explains that the riddle creature’s mouth that is always open and the lips that are never sealed—a quality of both sieves and talkative people. Line 2 goes on to describe how the creature is urged on its cursus (“course”) by frequenti verbere (“a well-used whip” or “a frequent blow”). It describes the act of shaking the sieve as if it were the whipping of a horse, which recalls the eccentric horse-bench of Riddle 4. The material that is being sieved is probably flour—made with Riddle 12’s grain and Riddle 9’s millstone—which is being separated from any bran or other impurities and made finer for baking.

“Talking horses aren’t just in riddles.”

The sieve begins to come into focus in line 3, which tells us that the object has no exta (“insides, bowels”) unless they are placed in there by hand, referring to its concave nature. The riddle then describes sieving as a violent act—the minutum vulnus (“tiny wound[s]”) represents the sieve’s holes, and the moving is the act of sieving.

The last two lines were not the easiest to translate, but the general idea is of separating good (i.e. the flour) from bad (i.e. the bran). This idea has distinctly a biblical feel, and I suspect that the author had Jesus’ remark to Simon Peter that Satan would sift the disciples like wheat (Luke 22.31). Whether he did or not, the central motif in this part of the riddle is that the sieve, who is left with only the detritus, gets the worst of the deal. Even worse, he is then abandoned, having served his purpose. What a sad ending for the poor sieve!

Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Related Posts:
Bern Riddle 4: De scamno
Bern Riddle 9: De mola
Bern Riddle 12: De grano

Bern Riddle 18: De scopa

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 27 Nov 2020
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 18: De scopa
Original text:
Florigeras gero comas, dum maneo silvis,
Et honesto vivo modo, dum habito campis.
Turpius me nulla domi vernacula servit
Et redacta vili solo depono capillos;
Cuncti per horrendam me terrae pulverem iactant,
Sed amoena domus sine me nulla videtur.
Translation:
I bear flowering foliage when I live in the woods,
And I live in a respectable way when I dwell in the fields.
At home, no servant has a filthier job than me,
and, led about the vile floor, I shed my hair.
Everyone drags me through the earth’s wretched dust,
but no home looks nice without me.
Click to show riddle solution?
Broom


Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 743.

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 564.



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Eusebius Riddle 18: De iniquitate et iustitia

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021
Original text:

Tempore quo factae fuimus, pugnare solemus.
Querimus armatos post nosque venire rogamus,
Seque sequentibus una solet sub melle venenum
Largiri; altera dat sub tristi tegmine vinum.

Translation:

From the time we were made, we have been accustomed to fight.
We seek armed men and ask that they come after us,
And one makes a practice of bestowing poison under honey
Unto her followers; the other gives wine under bitter covering.

Click to show riddle solution?
On iniquity and justice


Tags: riddles  latin  Eusebius 

Tatwine Riddle 18: De oculis

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Wed 05 Jan 2022
Original text:

Discernens totum iuris, natura locavit
Nos pariter, geminos, una de matre creatos,
Divisi haud magno parvi discrimen collis,
Ut numquam vidi illum, nec me viderat ipse,
Sed cernit sine me nihil, illo nec sine cerno.

Translation:

Separating us completely by her laws, nature placed
Us, twins, created equally from one mother,
Divided by the not-at-all big division of a little hill,
So that I have never seen that one, nor has that one seen me,
But he sees nothing without me, nor do I see without him.

Click to show riddle solution?
On the eyes


Tags: riddles  latin  Tatwine 

Aldhelm Riddle 18: Myrmicoleon

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 12 Mar 2022
Original text:

Dudum compositis ego nomen gesto figuris:
Ut leo, sic formica vocor sermone Pelasgo
Tropica nominibus signans praesagia duplis,
Cum rostris avium nequeam resistere rostro.
Scrutetur sapiens, gemino cur nomine fungar!

Translation:

Long have I had a name of composed form:
As “lion,” so “ant” am I called in the Greek language,
Signifying figurative indications with my two names,
Though I am unable to defend against birds’ beaks with a beak.
May a wise man seek why I am called this twin-name!

Click to show riddle solution?
Ant-lion


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 18: Coclea

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 01 Jul 2022
Original text:

Porto domum mecum, semper migrare parata,
Mutatoque solo non sum miserabilis exul,
Sed mihi concilium de caelo nascitur ipso.

Translation:

I carry my house with me, always ready to move,
And after I have moved ground I am not a miserable exile,
But rather my company is given from heaven itself.

Click to show riddle solution?
Snail


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 Bern Riddle 18: De scopa

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 22 Jan 2021
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 18: De scopa

Those readers who have seen Disney’s Fantasia will know all about the enchanted broom-on-legs whom the sorcerer’s apprentice summons to do his chores, with unintended consequences. Well, this riddle is about another anthropomorphic broom—but this time, the broom does not get the upper hand.


The riddle tells the story of an apparently respectable woman from the woods, who is transformed into a wretched and much-abused servant in the home. It also tells the story of a tree branch that is made into a broom. The riddle is all about power and status. It plays upon the social standing of the maidservant in the home, which it compares to the broom’s “servitude” to humans. As Samuel Röösli explains, the broom and the servant are the same “in that they both suffer a loss of agency and dignity in the interior space to which they are confined and which they must keep lovely” (Röösli, page 99). Often in classical and medieval texts, it is the wild woods and countryside that are associated with dishevelment and a humble station, but here they are linked to the domestic world. The movement from the countryside to the home also has a sexual element to it—the flowering of the branch in nature is juxtaposed against the filthiness of its work as a broom, probably with ideas of virginity and promiscuity in mind.

If we were not aware that the subject is a broom, then lines 4 and 5 of this riddle would be extremely disturbing. The servant-broom’s turpis (‘filthy’ or ‘sordid’) work would be a horrific act of domestic abuse—she is dragged about the floor so that she loses her hair (i.e. the straw or twigs of the broom’s head). Even more concerning is the fact that “everyone” (cuncti) participates in this abuse. The Bern Riddles often give you the sense that all humans are guilty of violent acts against the non-human world–and this is a prime example. They also frequently depict this violence as necessary for human life, as we see in the final line—despite her tribulations, the servant-broom nevertheless makes the home look beautiful. Just as the servant is considered equally lowly and indispensable, so is the humble broom.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

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



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Related Posts:
Bern Riddle 18: De scopa

Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 27 Nov 2020
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice
Original text:
Dissimilem sibi me mater concipit infra
Et nullo virili creta de semine fundor.
Dum nascor sponte, gladio divellor a ventre.
Caesa vivit mater, ego nam flammis aduror.
Nullum clara manens possum concedere quaestum;
Plurem fero lucrum, nigro si corpore mutor.
Translation:
My mother—I am unlike her—conceives me within,
and I am born and made from no manly seed.
While I am born willingly, I am ripped from the womb with a sword.
Cut, my mother lives on, for I am burnt by flames.
Retaining my shine, I can give no profit;
I carry more value if my body is turned dark.
Click to show riddle solution?
Wax or pitch


Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 744.

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 565.



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Eusebius Riddle 19: De V littera

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021
Original text:

Quinta vocor princeps vocum; est mihi trina potestas.
Nam nunc sola sonans loquor; aut nunc consono verbis;
Nunc medium pactum retinens nil dicor haberi.
Me malus Arrius expellit de iure fidei.

Translation:

The fifth, I am called the first of speech; my power is threefold. 
For now, sounding alone, I speak; or now, I harmonise with words;
Now, keeping to the middle way, I am said to be nothing.
Wicked Arius expelled me from the law of faith. (1)

Click to show riddle solution?
On the letter “V”


Notes:

(1) “Fifth” here in the first line could refer either to the fact that “V” is the Roman numeral for five or that the letter “u” (interchangeable with “v” in early Latin) is the fifth vowel. The three “powers” of “v” are as vowel (meaning “u”), consonant, and its “nothing” role following “q” in “qu-.”



Tags: riddles  latin  Eusebius 

Tatwine Riddle 19: De strabis oculis

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Wed 05 Jan 2022
Original text:

Inter mirandum cunctis est cetera quod nunc 
Narro quidem: nos produxit genitrix, uterinos,
Sed quod contemplor, mox illud cernere spernit,
Atque quod ille videt secum, mox cernere nolo.
Est dispar nobis visus, sed inest amor unus.

Translation:

For all to wonder at: among the things that indeed
I now say: our mother produced us, born of the same uterus,
But that which I observe, he afterwards scorns to behold,
And what he himself sees, I do not wish then to see.
Our sight is unequal, but our desire is one.

Click to show riddle solution?
On strabismus-eyes


Tags: riddles  latin  Tatwine 

Aldhelm Riddle 19: Salis

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 12 Mar 2022
Original text:

Dudum limpha fui squamoso pisce redundans,
Sed natura novo fati discrimine cessit,
Torrida dum calidos patior tormenta per ignes:
Nam cineri facies nivibusque simillima nitet.

Translation:

Once I was water, abundant with scaly fish, 
But this nature ended through a new decision of fate,
When I suffer scorching torments amid the hot fires:
For my face glitters, very like ash and snow. 

Click to show riddle solution?
Salt


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 19: Rana

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 01 Jul 2022
Original text:

Raucisonans ego sum media vocalis in unda,
Sed vox laude sonat, quasi se quoque laudet et ipsa;
Cumque canam semper, nullus mea carmina laudat.

Translation:

I sound hoarse of voice in the middle of the water,
But my voice sounds of praise, as if it were also praising itself;
And though I am always singing, no one praises my songs.

Click to show riddle solution?
Frog


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:

  • lines 2 and 3: these are printed in reverse order, but numbered "3, 2."


Tags: riddles  solutions  latin  symphosius 

Commentary for Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Wed 27 Jan 2021
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice

Sometimes, the Bern Riddles like to make us work hard for their solutions. You might remember Bern Riddle 16, which can be solved as either citrus fruit or cedar/juniper berry. Well, this is another riddle where we get to choose the solution. Many manuscripts give it the title of De pice (“About Pitch”), but one gives De nimpha (“About the fountain/siphon”) and another gives De cera (“About [bees]wax”). My preference is definitely “wax,” which fits with the next two riddles (“honey” and “bee”). Having said all this, it is a tricky riddle to read, and it took me quite a while to work out how the solution fits—see if you agree with my reading.

Wax2
“Beeswax. Photograph (by Frank Mikley) from Wikipedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)

The first two lines are all about likeness between a mother and her child—as with so many other riddles, we are expected to guess who the parent is. Originally, I thought that she was a mould for wax candles, but recently I have changed my mind: the mother is the beehive, who is utterly unlike her child, and who gives birth to the wax without any “manly seed” (virili… de semine). The wax caps are then cut out of the honeycomb “womb” (venter) by humans. As line 3 explains, although the hive has had the wax cut from it, it “lives on.” In this way, the riddle uses the virgin birth and caesarean birth motifs that we have already come across with Bern Riddle 8’s egg.

Candle
“6th/early 7th century beeswax candles, found in the Frankish-Alemannic graveyard of Oberflach, near Tuttlingen, Germany. Photograph (by Andreas Franzkowiak) from Wikipedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)

The wax is then burnt as a candle. Most early medieval candles would have been made of tallow, but expensive beeswax candles burnt brighter and with a more pleasant odour. Because of this, beeswax candles were frequently reserved for their use in liturgy, and particularly the Easter Vigil, where a candle would be lit on the night of Holy Saturday in the image of the Resurrection.

The final two lines are quite tricky to account for. Why is wax only valuable when it is darkened? My best guess is that these lines refer either to the process of rendering beeswax (i.e. melting and then straining it) to remove any impurities, or to the process of hand-dipping candles. If heated excessively, both processes can lead to the wax being discoloured. But I would welcome any other suggestions. Like I said, the Bern Riddles like to make us work!

Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Related Posts:
Bern Riddle 8: De ovo
Bern Riddle 16: De cedride
Bern Riddle 20: De melle
Bern Riddle 21: De apibus

Bern Riddle 20: De melle

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Fri 27 Nov 2020
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 20: De melle
Original text:
Lucida de domo lapsus diffundor ubique,
Et quali dimissus modo, non invenit ullus.
Bisque natus inde semel in utero cretus,
Qualis in conceptu, talis in partu renascor.
Milia me quaerunt, ales sed invenit una
Aureamque mihi domum depingit ab ore.
Translation:
Falling from a bright home, I am scattered everywhere
and, banished, no one finds out how.
Born twice, then grown once in the womb,
I am born again, in conception as in birth.
Thousands seek me, but only the flyer finds me
and paints a golden home for me with its mouth.
Click to show riddle solution?
Honey


Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 744.

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 566.



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Eusebius Riddle 20: De domo

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021
Original text:

Nunc tego quosque viros a quis et ante tegebar,
Ac durum frigus, miserans, hiememque repello.
Tempore luciferi solis, movebo calorem.
Stans tamen haec faciam; succumbens utraque numquam.
 

Translation:

Now I cover those men by whom I was once covered,
And I, pitying, drive back the harsh cold and winter.
In the time of the bright sun, I dislodge the heat.
To be clear: standing, I will do this; collapsing, I will never do either.
 

Click to show riddle solution?
On the house


Tags: riddles  latin  Eusebius 

Tatwine Riddle 20: De lusco

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Wed 05 Jan 2022
Original text:

Unus sum genitus, ducifer fratris sine fructu,
Eius sed propriam post ditabor comitatu,
Mortem, una vitam deinceps sine fine tenemus.
In vita natum nullus quem creverat umquam
Hoc qui non credit verum tunc esse videbit.

Translation:

I was born alone, a leader without a brother’s help, 
But after my own death, I will be enriched by his 
Company, and thereafter we will have life as one without end.
Whoever does not believe that this is true will then see
Born to life one whom none has ever seen.

Click to show riddle solution?
On the one-eyed


Tags: riddles  latin  Tatwine 

Aldhelm Riddle 20: Apis

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Sat 12 Mar 2022
Original text:

Mirificis formata modis, sine semine creta
Dulcia florigeris onero praecordia praedis;
Arte mea crocea flavescunt fercula regum.
Semper acuta gero crudelis spicula belli
Atque carens manibus fabrorum vinco metalla.

Translation:

Formed in miraculous ways, made without seed,
I load my sweet insides with loot from flowers; 
Through my craft the food of kings grows golden.
I always carry the sharp weapons of fierce war
And, lacking hands, I outperform smiths in metal-work.

Click to show riddle solution?
Bee


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 20: Testudo

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 01 Jul 2022
Original text:

Tarda, gradu lento, specioso praedita dorso;
Docta quidem studio, sed saevo prodita fato
Viva nihil dixit, quae sic modo mortua canto.

Translation:

Tardy, with a slow step, and endowed with a brilliant back;
Certainly learned in my zeal, but by cruel fate betrayed,
Alive, I said nothing; recently dead, I sing thus.

Click to show riddle solution?
Tortoise


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 2: Docta quidem studio > Tecta quidem, subito


Tags: riddles  solutions  latin  symphosius 

Commentary for Bern Riddle 20: De melle

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Thu 28 Jan 2021
Matching Riddle: Bern Riddle 20: De melle

This riddle is, to quote everyone’s favourite 90s Scottish noise-pop band, The Jesus and Mary Chain, “just like honey”—mainly because it is all about honey! It is the second of three bee-themed riddles (see Riddle 19 and Riddle 21).


Beekeeping was an important and very profitable economic activity throughout the European Middle Ages. Honey was a sweetener for food, it was a medicine, and it was fermented to produce mead; beeswax was used to make candles, adhesives, waterproof clothing, and paints, among other things.

In Italy, the ancient Roman culture of beekeeping continued into the early medieval period, albeit affected by the general decline in trade of the fifth and sixth centuries. Beekeeping was enthusiastically adopted by many monastic houses. The image below, taken from a late eleventh century Easter scroll (known as an “exultet roll”) from Monte Cassino gives us an idea of what these monastic beehives might have looked like—here, a beekeeper is harvesting wax from the hive.

Bees
“Beekeeper removing wax from a hive, BL Additional 30337, fol. 10. Photograph from The British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (licence: CC0 1.1)

Bees were also kept in pre-Conquest England. The Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, an English manual of estate management from c. 1100, mentions that a freeman who keeps bees (a beoceorl) should pay a tax to the landowner of 4 sestels (about 10 pints) of honey per year (Rectitudines, 6). Other English texts mention fines for theft from beehives (Attenborough, pages 68-71), and what to do if bees kill someone by stinging them—kill them and eat their honey (OE Scrifboc, CCC MS 190, fol. 382)! Bees and honey also feature in Old English poetry: Exeter Book Riddle 27 and the brilliant Old English metrical charm, For a Swarm of Bees.

Bees 2
“Bees and beehives from a 14th century French bestiary, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 151, f. 69v. Photograph from Digital Bodleian (licence: CC BY-NC 4.0)

Bern Riddle 20 begins by describing honey that is dripping “from the bright home” (lucida de domo) and scattered in a mysterious way. Reading this for the first time, you might think that the “bright home” is the beehive. But the riddle seems to be alluding to something much more interesting—the idea that honey is a form of dew created in the heavens, which falls upon plants and is collected by bees. If this is the case, then the “bright home” would be the sky. Several classical and medieval sources mention this belief, including Virgil and Isidore of Seville. Perhaps the most memorable description is found in Pliny the Elder’s encyclopaedic Natural History:

Venit hoc ex aere et maxime siderum exortu… sublucanis temporibus. Itaque tum prima aurora folia arborum melle roscida inveniuntur, ac si qui matutino sub divo fuere, unctas liquore vestis capillumque concretum sentiunt, sive ille est caeli sudor sive quaedam siderum saliva sive purgantis se aeris sucus.

[Honey] comes from the air, and largely from the rising of the stars… shortly before dawn. Thus, at first light, the leaves of the trees are found moist with honey, and if someone who has been under the morning sky, they feel their clothes are damp and their hair is matted, whether this is the sky’s moisture, or some kind of saliva of the stars, or the juice of the vomiting air.]
—Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XI, page 450. (translation mine)

Pliny was writing this in the 1st century AD, but his work continued to be influential throughout the early medieval period—Isidore of Seville used it when writing his own encyclopaedia, as did Bede. Interestingly, the riddle’s reference to the uncertain nature of celestial honey (line 2) also agrees with what Pliny says here. Perhaps the riddler was familiar with Pliny’s work? After all, the use of encyclopaedia-knowledge is very common in medieval riddles (see Mercedes Salvador-Bell, Isidorean Perceptions of Order).

The rebirth in lines 3 and 4 returns to the religious motif of rebirth and resurrection that appears in Riddles 6, 12, 13. But it also describes how the bees collect the nectar from the plants and then regurgitate it into the honeycomb. We saw in Riddle 19 that the honeycomb was a “womb” (venter). Likewise, here it is a “womb” (uterus), within which the honey “grows.”

Bees 3
“Bees and beehives from an early 13th century bestiary from Peterborough, Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 75v. Photograph from Digital Bodleian (licence: CC BY-NC 4.0)

In the final two lines, the thousands who seek honey are the humans who crave its sweet taste. The “flyer” (ales is, of course, the bee. Since bees create their honeycomb cells using regurgitated wax, it can be said that they “paint” their “golden home” (aureum domum) using their mouths.

Like many works of medieval literature on the natural world, Riddle 20 is a mix of curious myths and detailed observational truths. On the one hand, it mistakes pollen-collecting with celestial honey-collecting. At the same time, it recognises how bees build their honeycombs. It is a mixture of nature documentary and an un-bee—lievable story!

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

“Charm for a Swarm of Bees.” In Robert E. Bjork (ed. and trans.), Old English Shorter Poems, Volume II.Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014. 216-7

“Laws of Alfred.” In Frederick Attenborough (ed. and trans.), The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922. Pages 62-93. (The text is also available in the original and with a German translation, in Felix Liebermann (ed.), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, Vol. 1. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903. Pages 46-87. Available at Archive.org)

The Old English Scrifboc (or The Confessional of pseudo-Egbert) in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190, folios 387-413. Available at Parker Library on the Web.

Rectitudines Singularum Personarum. Early English Laws, IHR/King’s College London. Website. https://earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/rect/

Banham, Debbie. Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pages 104-5, 135-6.

Kritsky, Gene. “Beekeeping from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages.” Annual Review of Entomology, Volume 62 (2017). Pages 249-264.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Volume IX: Books 33-35. Loeb Classical Library 394. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, Mass.: harvard University Press, 1952.

Price, Helen. “A Hive of Activity: Realigning the Figure of the Bee in the Mead-Making Network of Exeter Book Riddle 27.” Postmedieval, Volume 8 (2017). 444-462.

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



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

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Exeter Riddle 27
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Bern Riddle 13: De vite
Bern Riddle 19: De cera/De pice
Bern Riddle 21: De apibus

Bern Riddle 21: De apibus

NEVILLEMOGFORD

Date: Sat 28 Nov 2020
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Bern Riddle 21: De apibus
Original text:
Masculus qui non sum sed neque femina, coniux.
Filios ignoto patri parturio multos.
Uberibus prolem nullis enutrio tantum;
Quos ab ore cretos nullo de ventre sumpsi.
Nomen quibus unum natisque conpar imago,
Meos inter cibos dulci conplector amore.
Translation:
I am a spouse who is neither man nor woman.
I am pregnant with many sons to an unknown father.
I feed an infant without using breasts;
I collected with my mouth those born out of no womb.
The children have a single name and a similar look.
With sweet love, I surround my children with food.
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Bees


Notes:

This edition is based on Karl Strecker, ed., Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, Vol. 4.2 (Berlin, MGH/Weidmann, 1923), page 744.

Line 4 follows the preferred reading in Fr. Glorie, ed., Variae collectiones aenigmatum Merovingicae aetatis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 133A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), page 567.



Tags: latin  Bern Riddles 

Eusebius Riddle 21: De terra et mare

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021
Original text:

Pacificari non volumus sic nec viduari.
Continuum bellum geritur non stantibus armis.
Cum pax perficitur, subter vel pugna quiescit,
Unumque ex alio semper decerpitur insons.

Translation:

We do not want thus to be pacified nor to be separated.
Continuous war is not waged with battling weapons.
When peace is achieved, or when battle ceases below,
One of us, innocent, is always plucked from the other.

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On the land and sea


Tags: riddles  latin  Eusebius 

Tatwine Riddle 21: De malo

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Wed 05 Jan 2022
Original text:

Est mirum ingrato cunctis quod nomine dicor,
Cum rarum aut dubium qui me sine vivere constat.
Nec ego privatim constare bono sine possum,
Certum namque bonum si dempserit omne, peribo.
Iam, mihi nulla boni innata est substantia veri.

Translation:

It is remarkable that I am called by a name unpleasant to all,
Because it is rare or doubtful that someone manages to live without me.
Nor can I manage on my own without good,
For certainly if one removes all good, I will perish.
Moreover, no substance of true good is innate in me.

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On evil


Tags: riddles  latin  Tatwine