© 2017 Denise Low, from a forthcoming collection, How to Write Mood in Verse
Riddles are embedded in
the earliest Anglo Saxon oral literatures. Webster’s
defines a riddle as: “A mystifying, misleading, or puzzling question
posed as a problem to be solved or guessed often as a game” (3rd ed.).
Beyond puzzles and questions, a riddle is, according to Edward Hirsch, “both an
interrogative and an expressive form, possibly the earliest form of oral
literature—a formulation of thought, a mode of association, a metaphor.” Hirsch
asserts that riddles are universal contests of wits, from Oedipus Rex to the
present. He describes riddles in the Sanskrit texts and the Hebrew Bible. In
any case, riddles use double entendres and other circumlocutions to
suggest a word or phrase. These can be instructive, but more often they are
pure whimsy. They also delight as they instruct.
Wordplay, from
nursery rhymes to bawdy limericks, appeals to people’s love of games. A well
wrought riddle is in itself a thing of interest, if not beauty. They are verbal
versions of the game “charades” and perfect for a long evening’s entertainment.
In
the history of British poetics, riddles begin with a set verse form. The mood
of whimsy, though, does not limit itself to a single form. Contemporary riddles
sustain the love of puzzles and solutions—in many forms.
Anglo Saxon Riddles
The two-part line, three beats each side,
is a common Anglo Saxon verse form; rhyme depends on alliteration. The Exeter Book o Riddles, 1000 years old,
contain dozens of riddles, some graphically sexual.
[Bookworm]
Moððe word
fræt-- me þæt þuhte
wrætlicu
wyrd þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn ,
þæt se wyrm
forswealg wera gied sumes ,
þeof in
þystro, þrymfæstne cwide
ond þæs
strangan staþol . Stælgiest ne wæs
wihte þy
gleawra þe he þam wordum swealg.
A moth ate songs--wolfed words!
That seemed a weird dish--that a worm
Should swallow, dumb thief in the dark,
The songs of a man, his chants of glory,
Their place of strength. That thief-guest
Was no wiser for having swallowed words.
That seemed a weird dish--that a worm
Should swallow, dumb thief in the dark,
The songs of a man, his chants of glory,
Their place of strength. That thief-guest
Was no wiser for having swallowed words.
The bookworm, or moth caterpillar, can
consume velum manuscripts, yet the oral tradition of songs and chants, when
held in memory, are beyond such destruction. The book reader may also be no
wiser after chewing up such a “cwide” or cud.
Here
is an example of a bawdy riddle, in the same verse form in the original but
lost here. It rivals any limerick, even after all these centuries:
Riddle 45, Exeter Book
I
have heard of a something-or-other,
growing
in its nook, swelling and rising,
pushing
up its covering. Upon that boneless thing
a
cocky-minded young woman took a grip with her hands;
with
her apron a lord's daughter covered the tumescent thing.
Here are a couple Mother Goose riddles that
have simple end rhymes, and they are in modern English. They are still as old
as anyone can remember; perhaps the couplets echo the early Anglo-Saxon
two-part line:
A Sieve
A
riddle, a riddle, as I suppose,
A hundred eyes and never a nose!
A Star
Higher than a house,
higher than a tree.
Oh! whatever can that be?
These are simpler than the Exeter riddles,
designed to appeal to children. These train the imagination as well as the ear
for rhythms of the English language.
Contemporary
Riddles
Emily
Dickinson writes some of the first serious riddles in U.S. poetry. The riddle
form gives this poem a tone of irony rather than gloom:
Under
the Light yet under
Under
the Light, yet under,
Under
the Grass and the Dirt,
Under
the Beetle's Cellar
Under
the Clover's Root,
Further
than Arm could stretch
Were
it Giant long,
Further
than Sunshine could
Were
the Day Year long,
Over
the Light, yet over,
Over
the Arc of the Bird --
Over
the Comet's chimney --
Over
the Cubit's Head,
Further
than Guess can gallop
Further
than Riddle ride --
Oh
for a Disc to the Distance
Between
Ourselves and the Dead!
The topic of the poem, the “Dead,” is held back
until the end. It is indirect, repetitive descriptions of the unknown with
parallel lines, alliterative like some Anglo Saxon verse. The architecture of
the poem, then, creates a suspense. Dickinson also injects whimsy into the
details, like the “Beetle’s Cellar.” Then the contrast to the last line is most
extreme. This is an adult poem that borrows the light verse form and subverts
it.
I borrow a child’s riddle form for this long,
sectioned poem about “eyes.” Even though the answer is in each section, the
uncovering of unexpected places for eyes is the point of the wordplay:
Eye Riddles, by Denise Low
Laser-dot red eyes among green
euonymus sheaves:
A vireo darts herky jerky
on
spliced-video film.
Looped once, looped twice:
Tweet.
Silence. Tweet. Silence.
+
Peony buds drip sap
striped
billiard balls
red
white green white
eyes squeezed shut.
+
Lookout chipmunk
its
kohl-lined eyes
point
the way
past
pine’s
bare
slash.
Tail taut
black
bead eyes
look
out.
+
A cat’s vertical eyes
are tandem gyroscopes
level just so.
Its body circles
unmoved elliptical
twin stars.
+
Dog eyes are brown honey
traps.
+
Snake eyes
slit yellow moonlight
make two wires
skewering
tossed ivory
cubes.
+
Kelly green poison veins
feed on plump potato flesh.
Below nubby eye bumps
Cuzco-line alien lifeforms glow.
+
What
my father
saw that night
the
door jamb
painted
Evil
Eye
in
invisible ink.
He tells me
“The Devil is real.”
Contemporary riddles work through contrasts,
accumulation of details, extended metaphor—all to lead readers to discovery.
The Bible has riddle contests, literal battles of the wits (Daniel, Solomon,
Samson). Hirsch dates Sanskrit riddles to book 1 of the Rig-Veda (1700–1100
BCE). Riddles are among the oldest poetic forms. They adapt from comic to
serious themes; they take shape in myriad patterns.
Hirsch, Edward. “Riddle.” Academy of American Poetry.org. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/riddle-poets-glossary
Low, Denise. A Casino Bestiary (Spartan Press, 2017).
Robinson, Fred C.
"Artful Ambiguities in the Old English 'Book-Moth' Riddle," Anglo-Saxon
Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, ed. L.E. Nicholson
and D. W. Frese (Notre Dame University Press, 1975), pp. 355-62.
“The Exeter Book of
Riddles”-Flowers of History: Incidental notes after the eclectic histories of
Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris. University of Chicago.edu
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_Romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/flowers/enigmata.html
“Old English Riddles.” Swarthmore College Department of English.
