Exeter Riddle 90

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Fri 30 Oct 2020
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 90
This is the famous Latin Riddle – the only non-Old English poem in the Exeter Book!

Original text:
Mirum videtur mihi –           lupus ab agno tenetur;
obcu[..]it agnus * * *(1)           et capit viscera lupi.
Dum starem et mirarem,           vidi gloriam magnam:
duo lupi stantes           et tertium tribulantes –
quattuor pedes habebant;           cum septem oculis videbant.
Translation:
It seems wondrous to me – a wolf is held by a lamb;
the lamb lay down and grasps the wolf’s innards.
While I stood and marveled, I saw a great wonder:
two wolves standing and afflicting a third –
they had four feet; they saw with seven eyes.
Click to show riddle solution?
Lamb of God, Web and Loom, Candelabra


Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 129v of The Exeter Book.

The above Latin text is based on this edition, where it is numbered Riddle 86: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 117-18.

The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), page 240.

Textual Note:

(1) Something seems to be missing here in terms of sense, but there is no damage to the manuscript at this point (only obcu[..]it is damaged by a burnt spot right above the word). Editors frequently sub in a suggested missing word – most commonly rupi (on a stone) because of the rhyme with lupi.



Tags: anglo saxon  exeter book  riddles  solutions  latin  riddle 90