Old English Riddle

RIDDLE


(Old English)


Wiht is wrætlic þam þe hyre wisan ne conn:

singeð þurh sidan. Is se sweora woh,

orþoncum geworht; hafaþ eaxle tua

scearp on gescyldrum. His gesceapo [ . . .]

* * *

(Contemporary)


She shapes for her listeners a haunting sound

Who sings through her sides. Her neck is round

And delicately shaped; on her shoulders draped,

Beautiful jewels. Her fate is strange

* * *




Answer to the riddle:

Lyre Shepherd's Pipe, Shuttle (in conjunction with the following riddle)

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Tempests- (n.)

"violent storm," c.1250, from O.Fr. tempeste (11c.), from V.L. *tempesta, from L. tempestas (gen. tempestatis) "storm, weather, season," also "commotion, disturbance," related to tempus "time, season." Sense evolution is from "period of time" to "period of weather," to "bad weather" to "storm." Words for "weather" were originally words for "time" in languages from Russia to Brittany. Fig. sense of "violent commotion" is recorded from c.1315. Tempestuous is attested from 1447.

Writ- (v.)

O.E. writ "something written, piece of writing," from the past participle stem of writan (see write). Used of legal documents or instruments since at least 1121.