Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/34

 ''It has neither foot nor hand,     nor touches the ground, nor two eyes nor mouth     nor speaks with men. It has no mind,    but the books say it is quite the poorest     of all creatures that were ever begotten     according to nature. ''

It has no soul nor life,    but makes its way far and wide     through this wonderful world It has no blood, no bone,     yet gives aid and comfort to many men     the wide world over.

''It never reached to heaven,    it may not to hell, but forever it must     live by the teachings of the King of Glory. Long is it to relate how its way of life    will go thereafter fate&rsquo;s crooked ways.''

''                                 This is a marvelous thing to say:     it is all true that ever with words     is told about it. It has no limit. It lives nevertheless.''

If you can straightway    rede this riddle with true words,     tell what its name is.

The usual answer is Moon and Day. The paradoxes remind one of 11 ( 40), with which it has some metrical and stylistic similarities. Both may be by the same author. Mrs. von Erhardt-Siebold, who regards it as &ldquo;one of the finest&rdquo; and praises its &ldquo;ingenious and fascinating poetry,&rdquo; offers the tempting solution (PMLA [1946], 910–15) of given an identity Death, in the manner of Plato. She divides it into seven parts (as printed above): death is not real, not abstract; it comes privately and only once; it is a &ldquo;suprasensible entity&rdquo;; it is not really lifeless: it has eternal life; this is not conjecture, but fact; you first explain it and then name it.

A thing there is    strangely begotten, furious and fierce;     runs a violent course