Bern Riddles

The Bern Riddles, also known as Aenigmata Hexasticha or the Riddles of "Tullius", are a collection of 63 metrical Latin riddles, named after the location of their earliest surviving manuscript, held in Bern: Codex Bernensis 611, from the eighth or ninth century. Although it has been suggested that they were composed in antiquity,[1] most scholars consider that they are inspired by the c. fourth-century collection of riddles attributed to Symphosius,[2] and date to around the seventh century, perhaps by "a Lombard familiar with Mediterranean flora and food";[3] they may have been composed in Bobbio.[4] According to Archer Taylor, "The Berne Riddles are especially interesting for the author's familiarity with the North Italian landscape and its plants. Whoever he was, we may safely call him the first medieval riddle-master in Italy".[5]

Other manuscripts include Codex Lipsiensis Rep. I 74 (C9-10, the only manuscript to contain all 63 riddles); Codex Vindobonensis 67 (from the third quarter of C12, and containing all but the sixty-third riddle); and the much briefer Codex Parisianus 5596 (C9); Codex Parisinus 8071 (C9); and Codex Vat. Reg. Lat. 1553 (early C9).[6]

An example of one of the riddles is:

Mortua maiorem uiuens quam porto laborem.
Dum iaceo, multos seruo; si stetero, paucos.
Dead, I bear a greater labour than when living.
When I lie dead I preserve many; if I remain standing, few.[7]

Editions

The main modern edition of the Berne Riddles is Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), pp. 541–610.

References

  1. ↑ Chauncey E. Finch, 'The Riddles in Cod. Barb. Lat. 1717 and Newberry Case MS f 11', Manuscripta: A Journal for Manuscript Research, 17 (1973), 3-11 (p. 3); DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1484/J.MSS.3.726.
  2. ↑ Chauncey E. Finch, 'Codex Vat. Barb. Lat. 721 as a Source for the Riddles of Symphosius', Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 98 (1967), 173-79 (p. 173); DOI: 10.2307/2935872; http://www.jstor.org/stable/2935872.
  3. ↑ Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exteter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 22.
  4. ↑ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), p. 58.
  5. ↑ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), p. 59.
  6. ↑ Chauncey E. Finch, 'The Bern Riddles in Codex Vat. Reg. Lat. 1553', Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 92 (1961), 145-55 (p. 145); http://www.jstor.org/stable/283806.
  7. ↑ Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exteter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 16, citing Glorie and Sorrell.
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