Deipnosophistae

And Alexis, in his Sleep, proposes a griphus of this kind—

1. A. It is not mortal, nor immortal either
2. But as it were compounded of the two,
3. So that it neither lives the life of man,
4. Nor yet of God, but is incessantly
5. New born again, and then again deprived
6. Of this its present life; invisible,
7. Yet it is known and recognised by all.
8. B. You always do delight, O lady, in riddles.
9. A. No, I am speaking plain and simple things.
10. B. What child then is there which has such a nature!
11. A. 'Tis sleep, my girl, victor of human toils.

And Eubulus, in his Sphingocarion, proposes grip i of this kind, himself afterwards giving the solution of there—

1. A. There is a thing which speaks, yet has no tongue
2. A female of the same name as the male;
3. The steward of the winds, which it holds fast;
4. Rough, and yet sometimes smooth; full of dark voices
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5. Scarce to be understood by learned men;
6. Producing harmony after harmony;
7. 'Tis one thing, and yet many; e'en if wounded
8. 'Tis still invulnerable and unhurt.
9. B. What can that be?
10. A. Why, don't you know, Callistratus?
11. It is a bellows.
12. B. You are joking now.
13. A. No; don't it speak, although it has no tongue?
14. Has it not but one name with many people?
15. Is't not unhurt, though with a wound i' the centre?
16. Is it not sometimes rough, and sometimes smooth?
17. Is it not, too, a guardian of much wind?

Again:—

1. There is an animal with a locust's eye,
2. With a sharp mouth, and double deathful head;
3. A mighty warrior, who slays a race
4. Of unborn children.

('Tis the Egyptian ichneumon.) For he does seize upon the crocodile's eggs, And, ere the latent offspring is quite form'd, Breaks and destroys them: he's a double head, For he can sting with one end, and bite with th' other. Again:—

1. I know a thing which, while it's young, is heavy,
2. But when it's old, though void of wings, can fly
3. With lightest motion, out of sight o' th' earth.

This is thistledown. For it—

1. While it is young, stands solid in its seed,
2. But when it loses that, is light and flies,
3. Blown about every way by playful children.

Listen, now, to this one—

1. There is an image all whose upper part
2. Is its foundation, while the lower part
3. Is open; bored all through from head to feet;
4. 'Tis sharp, and brings forth men in threefold way,
5. Some of whom gain the lot of life, some lose it:
6. All have it; but I bid them all beware.

And you yourselves may decide here, that he means the box into which the votes are thrown, so that we may not borrow everything from Eubulus.

And Antiphanes, in his Problem, says—

1. A. A man who threw his net o'er many fish,
2. Though full of hope, after much toil and cost,
3. Caught only one small perch. And 'twas a cestreus,
4. Deceived itself, who brought this perch within,
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5. For the perch followeth the blacktail gladly.
6. B. A cestreus, blacktail, perch, and man, and net,—
7. I don't know what you mean; there's no sense in it.
8. A. Wait while I clearly now explain myself:
9. There is a man who giving all he has,
10. When giving it, knows not to whom he gives it,
11. Nor knows he has the things he does not need.
12. B. Giving, not giving, having, and not having,—
13. I do not understand one word of this.
14. A. These were the very words of this same griphus.
15. For what you know you do not just now know,
16. What you have given, or what you have instead.
17. This was the meaning.
18. B. Well, I should be glad
19. To give you too a griphus.
20. A. Well, let's have it.
21. B. A pinna and a mullet, two fish, both
22. Endued with voices, had a conversation,
23. And talk'd of many things; but did not say
24. What they were talking of, nor whom they thought
25. They were addressing; for they both did fail
26. In seeing who it was to whom they talk'd.
27. And so, while they kept talking to each other,
28. The goddess Ceres came and both destroy'd.

And in his play called Sappho, Antiphanes represents the poetess herself as proposing griphi, which we may call riddles, in this manner: and then some one else is represented as solving them. For she says—

1. S. There is a female thing which holds her young
2. Safely beneath her bosom; they, though mute,
3. Cease not to utter a loud sounding voice
4. Across the swelling sea, and o'er the land,
5. Speaking to every mortal that they choose;
6. But those who present are can nothing hear,
7. Still they have some sensation of faint sound.

And some one, solving this riddle, says—

1. B.The female thing you speak of is a city;
2. The children whom it nourishes, orators;
3. They, crying out, bring from across the sea,
4. From Asia and from Thrace, all sorts of presents
5. The people still is near them while they feed on
6. And pour reproaches ceaselessly around,
7. While it nor hears nor sees aught that they do.
8. S. But how, my father, tell me, in God's name,
9. Can you e'er say an orator is mute,
10. Unless, indeed, he's been three times convicted?
11. B. And yet I thought that I did understand
12. The riddle rightly. Tell me then yourself.

And so then he introduces Sappho herself solving the riddle, thus—

1. S. The female thing you speak of is a letter,
2. The young she bears about her is the writing:
3. They're mute themselves, yet speak to those afar off
4. Whene'er they please. And yet a bystander,
5. However near he may be, hears no sound
6. From him who has received and reads the letter.

And Diphilus, in his Theseus, says that there were once three Samian damsels, who, on the day of the festival of Adonis, used to delight themselves in solving riddles at their feasts. And that when some one had proposed to them this riddle,

What is the strongest of all things?

one said iron, and alleged the following reasons for her opinion, because that is the instrument with which men dig and cut, and that is the material which they use for all purposes. And when she had been applauded, the second damsel said that a blacksmith exerted much greater strength, for that he, when he was at work, bent this strong iron, and softened it, and used it for whatever purposes he chose. And the third said, they were both wrong, and that love was the strongest thing of all, for that love could subdue a blacksmith.

And Achæus the Eretrian, though he is usually a very clear poet as respects the structure of his poems, sometimes makes his language obscure, and says many things in an enigmatical style; as, for instance, in his Iris, which is a satyric play. For he says,

A cruet of litharge full of ointment was suspended from a Spartan tablet, written upon and twisted on a double stick;

meaning to say a white strap, from which a silver cruet was suspended; and he has spoken of a Spartan written tablet when he merely meant the Spartan scytale. And that the Lacedæmonians put a white strap, on which they wrote whatever they wished, around the scytale, we are told plainly enough by Apollonius Rhodius, in his Treatise on Archilochus. And Stesichorus, in his Helen, speaks of a footpan of litharge; and Ion, in his Phœnix or Cæneus, calls the birdlime the sweat of the oak, saying—

1. The sweat of oaks, and a long leafy branch
2. Cut from a bush supports me, and a thread
3. Drawn from Egyptian linen, clever snare
4. To catch the flying birds.

And Hermippus says, that Theodectes of Phaselus, in

his book on the Pupils of Isocrates, was a wonderfully clever man at discovering any riddles that might be proposed to him, and that he too could propose riddles to others with great acuteness. As that riddle about shade, for instance;— for he said that there was a nature which is greatest at its birth and at its decease, and least when at its height. And he speaks thus:—

1. Of all the things the genial earth produces,
2. Or the deep sea, there is no single one,
3. Nor any man or other animal
4. Whose growth at all can correspond to this:
5. For when it first is born its size is greatest;
6. At middle age 'tis scarcely visible,
7. So small it's grown; but when 'tis old and hastens
8. Nigh to its end, it then becomes again
9. Greater than all the objects that surround it.

And in the Œdipus, which is a tragedy, he speaks of night and day in the following riddle:—

1. There are two sisters, one of whom brings forth
2. The other, and in turn becomes its daughter.

And Callisthenes, in his Greek History, tells the following story, that

when the Arcadians were besieging Cromnus, (and that is a small town near Megalopolis,) Hippodamus the Lacedæmonian, being one of the besieged persons, gave a message to the herald who came to them from the Lacedæmonians, showing the condition in which they were by a riddle, and he bade him tell his mother-'to be sure and release within the next ten days the little woman who was bound in the temple of Apollo; as it would not be possible to release her if they let those days elapse.' And by this message he plainly enough intimated what he was desirous to have understood; for the little woman meant is Famine, of which there was a picture in the temple of Apollo, near the throne of Apollo, and it was represented under a woman's form; so it was evident to every one that those who were besieged could hold out only ten days more because of famine. So the Lacedæmonians, understanding the meaning of that had been said, brought succour with great speed to the men in Cromnus.

There are also many other riddles, such as this:—

1. I saw a man who by the means of fire
2. Was glueing brass unto another man
3. So closely that they two became like brothers.

And this expression means the application of a cupping- glass. And a similar one is that of Panarces, mentioned by Clearchus, in his Essay on Griphi, that

A man who is not a man, with a stone which was not a stone, struck a bird which was not a bird, sitting on a tree which was not a tree.

For the things alluded to here are a eunuch, a piece of pumice-stone, a bat, and a narthex[*](νάρθηξ, a tall umbelliferous plant, (Lat. ferula,) with a slight knotted pithy stalk, in which Prometheus conveyed the spark of fire from heaven to earth. —L. & S. Gr. Eng. Lex. in voc. νάρθηξ. ). And Plato, in the fifth book of his Laws,[*](This is a mistake of Athenæus. The passage referred to occurs in the fifth book of the De Republica.) alludes to this riddle, where he says, that those philosophers who occupy themselves about minute arts, are like those who, at banquets, doubt what to eat, and resemble too the boys' riddle about the stone thrown by the eunuch, and about the bat, and about the place from which they say that the eunuch struck down the bat, and the engine with which he did it.

And of this sort also are those enigmatical sayings of Pythagoras, as Demetrius of Byzantium says, in the fourth book of his treatise on Poets, where, for instance, he says,

A man should not eat his heart;

meaning,

a man should cultivate cheerfulness.

One should not stir the fire with a sword;

meaning,

One should not provoke an angry man;

for anger is fire, and quarrelsomeness is a sword.

One should not step over a yoke

meaning,

one should avoid and hate all kinds of covetousness, but seek equality.

One should not travel along the high road;

meaning, One should not follow the opinions of the multitude, (for the common people approve of whatever they take in their heads without any fixed principle,) but one should rather go on the straight road, using sense as one's guide."

One should not sit down upon a bushel;

meaning,

one should not be content with merely considering what is sufficient for the present day, but one should always have an eye to the future

* * * * * * [*](A line or two is lost here, containing probably the enigmatical sentence subsequently referred to.)

For death is the boundary and limit of life;

and this saying is meant to forbid us approaching the subject with anxiety and grief.

And Dromeas the Coan used to play at riddles in

much the same way as Theodectes, according to the state- ment of Clearchus: and so did Aristonymus, the player on the harp, without any vocal accompaniment: and so did that Cleon who was surnamed Mimaulus, who was the best actor of Italian mimes that ever appeared on the stage without a mask. For in the style of play which I have mentioned already, he was superior even to Nymphodors. And Ischomachus the herald was an imitator of his, who used to give his representations in the middle of a crowd, and after he had become celebrated, he altered his style and used to act mimes at the jugglers[*](The Greek is ἐν γάστρι ἔχει, which also signifies to be pregnant.) shows. And the riddles which these men used to propose were of the following kind:—A clown once had eaten too much, and was very unwell, and when the physician asked him whether he had eaten to vomit, No, said he, but I ate to my stomach. And another was,— A poor woman had a pain in her stomach, and when the physician asked her whether she had anything in her stomach, How should I, said she, when I have eaten nothing for three days?

And the writings of Aristonymus were full of pompous ex- pressions: and Sosiphanes the poet said to Cephisocles the actor, reproaching him as a man fond of long words,

I would throw a stone at your loins, if I were not afraid of wetting the bystanders.

But the logical griphus is the oldest kind, and the one most suited to the natural character of such enigmatical language.

What do we all teach when We do not know it ourselves

and,

What is the same nowhere and everywhere?

and also,

What is the same in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea?

But this is a riddle arising from an identity of name; for there is a bear, and a serpent, and an eagle, and a dog, both in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea. And the other riddle means Time; for that is the same to all people and everywhere, because it has not its nature depending on one place. And the first riddle means

How to live:

for though no one knows this himself he teaches his neighbour.

And Callias the Athenian, whom we were discussing just now, and who was a little before Strattis in point of time, wrote a play which he called Grammatical Science; and the plot of it was as follows. The prologue consists of the

elements, and the actor should recite it, dividing it into para- graphs, and making the termination in the manner of a dramatic catastrophe, into

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, eta, theta. For ει is sacred to the God; iota, cappa, lambda, mu, nu, xu, the diphthong ou, pi, rho, sigma, tau, the present u, phi, chi, which is next to psi, all down to omega.

And the chorus consisted of women, in pairs, made of two elements taken together, composed in metre and lyrical odes in this fashion —

Beta alpha ba, beta ei be, beta eta be, beta iota bi, beta ou bo, beta upsilon bu, beta omega bo.

And then, again, in the antistrophe of the ode and of the metre,

Gamma alpha, gamma ei, gamma eta, gamma iota, gamma omicron, gamma upsilon, gamma omega.

And in the same way he dealt with all other syllables—all which have the same melody and the same metre in the antistrophes. So that people not only suspect that Euripides drew all his Medea from this drama, but they think that it is perfectly plain that he drew the system of his choruses from it. And they say that Sophocles, after he had heard this drama, endeavoured to divide his poem in respect of the metre, and did it thus, in the Œdipus,—

1. I shall not grieve myself nor you,
2. Being convicted of this action.

On which account, all the rest admitted the system of antistrophes from his example, as it should seem, into their tragedies. Then, after this chorus, Callias introduces another speech of vowels, in this manner: (and this also the reciter must divide into paragraphs in the same way as the previous portions, in order that that delivery may be preserved which the author originally intended)—

1. Alpha alone, O woman; then one should
2. Say ει alone in the second place: next,
3. Still by itself you will say, thirdly, Eta;
4. Fourth, still alone, Iota; fifthly, Ou.
5. In the sixth place, Upsilon by itself.
6. The last of all the seven vowels is
7. The slow-paced Omega. The seven vowels
8. In seven verses; and when you've recited
9. All these, then go and ponder by yourself.