Symphosius

Caelius Firmianus Symphosius (sometimes, in older scholarship and less properly, Symposius) was the author of the Aenigmata, an influential collection of 100 Latin riddles, probably from the late antique period.

The riddles

The riddles themselves, written in tercets of hexameters, are of elegant Latinity, leading some to date them as early as the 2nd century (they were even attributed to Lactantius, and identified with his Symposium, but this view is that of a single 18th-century editor, and is not generally accepted).^[1] The prevailing view today is that they were probably composed in the 4th or 5th century. The author's brief preface states that they were written to form part of the entertainment at the Saturnalia, but this is a literary convention, and the passage may not even have been original.^[2]

One example of one of Symphosius's riddles is his Harundo ('reed'):

Dulcis amica ripae, semper uicina profundis,

Suaue cano Musis; nigro perfusa colore,

Nuntia sum linguae digitis signata magistris.

Sweet darling of the banks, always close to the depths, sweetly I

sing for the Muses; when drenched with black, I am the tongue’s

messenger by guiding fingers pressed.^[3]

Another is Echo:

Virgo modesta nimis legem bene seruo pudoris;

Ore procax non sum, nec sum temeraria linguae;

Vltro nolo loqui, sed do responsa loquenti.

A modest maid, too well I observe the law of modesty;

I am not pert in speech nor rash of tongue;

of my own accord I will not speak, but I answer him who speaks.^[4]

Influence

The Aenigmata were influential on later Latin riddle-writers, inspiring the Bern Riddles, those of Aldhelm, Tatwine, and others. Ten of them appear in the riddle-contest in Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri.^[5] They had some popularity as school-texts among Renaissance humanists: some appear in the anonymous Aenigmata et griphi veterum et recentium (Douai 1604), which Joachim Camerarius translated seventeen into Greek for his Elementa rhetoricae of 1545.^[6]

Editions

The editio princeps was by Joachimus Perionius, Paris, 1533; the most recent editions are:

• E. F. Corpet, Paris, 1868, with witty French translation
• Elizabeth Hickman du Bois, The Hundred Riddles of Symphosius, Woodstock, Vermont : The Elm Tree Press, 1912 (Peck), with elegant English translation
• Raymond Ohl, 1928, with English.
• Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), pp. 620–723.

References

1. Chisholm 1911, p. 291.
2. Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), p. 54).
3. Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), p. 623.
4. Fr. Glorie (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), p. 719 (no. 98).
5. 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.
6. Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), p. 53).

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Symphosius". Encyclopædia Britannica 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 291.

External links

• The Aenigmata of Symphosius, in Latin and English translation from the Peck and Ohl editions with introductory material, at LacusCurtius
• The riddles of Symphosius, complete original texts and links to related sites.