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Exeter Book Riddle 90 under a New Light: A School Drill in Hisperic Robes

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Abstract

Being the only text written entirely in Latin extant in the Exeter Book, Riddle 90 has eluded a plausible explanation of its exceedingly obscure clues and no satisfactory solution has been proposed for it yet. In this paper, I argue this is so because this composition was probably not a riddle in origin. Instead, what has traditionally been referred to as Riddle 90 should rather be seen as a school drill that probably seeped into the Exeter Book in the last stages of its compilation process or—more probably—its exemplar. A paleographical study of this text will evince that this poem was copied into the Exeter Book exemplar rather mechanically by a scribe who could not make much of its contents. Furthermore, an analysis of the rhetorical characteristics of Riddle 90 shows that the poet probably had in mind the literary patterns set by the Hisperic style, as observed in Aldhelm’s Carmen rhythmicum and The Rhyming Poem. Finally, I demonstrate that the formal aspects of Riddle 90 suggest that—in spite of being a modest Latin drill—this text could have been included into the Exeter Book because its stylistic features were consonant with the poetic modes cultivated by authors belonging to “Æthelwold’s school,” of which Wulfstan of Winchester was the leading representative.

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Notes

  1. For these two other cases, see my comments further in this essay (p. $). The numbering of the Exeter Book Riddles mentioned in this essay corresponds to that offered in Krapp and van Dobbie’s edition (1936).

  2. The dating of the Exeter Book has been a controversial aspect, since scholars have proposed different timespans within 950–990. For further information, see Chambers (1933, p. 90), Conner (1993, p. 76) and Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 1).

  3. Gretsch (1999, p. 5), for example, affirms that “the literary culture nurtured by the Benedictine reform, even in its nascent stage, based itself decisively on the pivotal role of the vernacular…” .

  4. For the Exeter Book as an anthology, see Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 11).

  5. A convenient summary of different solutions proposed for this riddle, see Williamson (1977, pp. 384–387) and Muir (1994, vol. 2, pp. 679–680).

  6. See Tigges (1994, p. 97) and, more recently, Salvador-Bello (2015, pp. 398–402 and 445–446).

  7. Actually, Riddle 90 could have been easily rendered into English by an Anglo-Saxon translator of any skill. See Anderson (1992, p. 75).

  8. Thorpe (1842, p. 497) supplied obcurrit and this proposal was accepted by several critics. However, Mackie (1933, p. 77) observed that the two letters which were partially hidden by the binding used to cover the hole should rather be bu instead of cu. Krapp and van Dobbie (1936, pp. 240 and 378) accepted “obcubuit” in their edition. As explained by Muir (1994, vol. 2, p. 679), “the bowl of the b is clearly visible in the facsimile and can belong to no other letter.” Orchard (2018, vol. 1) similarly accepts this reading.

  9. As common in most editions, I have adopted mirarem as a possible emendation for manuscript “misarem,” which seems to be a corrupt form of the former.

  10. Holthausen (1907, p. 211) substituted manuscript “magnan” for “parem” in an attempt to offer a metrically correct rhyme for “misarem.” Whitbread (1946, p. 156) and Orchard (2018, vol. 1) subscribe to this emendation.

  11. Brackets here stand for text that has been provided and italics represent words or parts of words which have been editorially modified. See Krapp and van Dobbie’s comments (1936, p. 378) on this thoroughly reconstructed text.

  12. The term “rupi”—or a different one—was apparently dropped in the process of copying. This addition was first proposed by Holthausen (1907, p. 211) and has been accepted by most scholars. However, Davis and Schlueter (1989, p. 93, n. 3) offered “morti” as a way to provide a metrically correct line instead. This idea is supported by Muir who states that “there is ample classical evidence for the use of mors with obcumbere” (1994, vol. 2, p. 680). Orchard (2018, vol. 1), by contrast, retains “rupi.”

  13. My translation.

  14. By way of example, a notorious case is Riddle 23, whose first line reads “Agof is min noma” in the manuscript (fol. 106v). The text thus offers Agof instead of Agob, which was meant to suggest the solution OE boga (bow). See Williamson (1977, pp. 204–205); also, for an analysis of the textual and visual peculiarities of Riddle 23, see Rudolf (2012, pp. 505–508). A further scribal blunder is observed in Riddle 66 (1b), in which the widely used word middangeard appears as “mindan geard” (fol. 125v). For further “uncorrected nonsense-forms” in the Exeter Riddles, see Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 43).

  15. See, for example, Muir (1989, p. 273).

  16. Similarly, Anderson (1992, p. 76) considered that the poem could be incomplete.

  17. Note that Whitbread (1946, p. 156) also suspected this: “there is a slight possibility that some of the distortion in the received text is a deliberate extra puzzle and is due to the composer himself, who has after all left fairly clear clues for its correction.”

  18. Numbers in this case represent verse lines in Riddle 90 as offered in the preceding edited version on p. $ above.

  19. For a similar case of editorial hypercorrection in Exeter Riddle 35, see Salvador(-Bello 2001).

  20. See, e.g., Krapp/Dobbie (1936, p. 205) and Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 322).

  21. Rudolf (2012, p. 510).

  22. Parkes (1997, p. 1) stated that emendatio “required a reader (or his teacher) to correct the text in his copy, and sometimes tempted him to ‘improve’ it.”

  23. As I have argued elsewhere (2015, pp. 398–402), there is evidence that the assembling of the riddles included in the final part of the manuscript was done in a rather careless way.

  24. A further explanation is that the scribe might have mistaken the two words for Latin lapidum, a genitive plural of the third-declension term lapis (stone). It may also be conjectured that “dum” was understood as an enclitic form such as in “nondum” or “etiamdum,” so that it was added to “lupi.” I owe this idea to Joaquín Gutiérrez.

  25. Sisam (1953, p. 97) opines that the copy of the Exeter Book “may be several times removed from the original miscellany.”

  26. See, for example, Riddles 6, 26, 35 and 47 (fols. 102v, 107r, 109r and 112v, respectively).

  27. Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 379, note) and Orchard (2018, vol. 2). As stated by Flower (Chambers 1933, p. 84), “It has been debated whether this a is a revival from the native half-uncial or a borrowing from the Caroline minuscule… But the balance of probability appears to be in favour of the half-uncial origin.”

  28. Throughout this section, numbers within parentheses stand for manuscript lines as observed in Fig. 1.

  29. See Chambers (1933, p. 84), Ker (1957, repr. 1990, p. xxviii), Muir (1989, p. 282), and Conner (1993, p. 63). Both Muir and Conner register a total of seventy-nine cases of the oc form of a in the Exeter Book. See Muir’s tables for this letterform (1989, pp. 284–288).

  30. Muir (1989, p. 282) records 29 occurrences of this oc form “in less significant Old English words.” Also, Flower (Chambers 1933, p. 84) affirms that “sporadic appearance of the form appears to be characteristic of the second half of the Tenth Century.”

  31. For the faulty use of this traditional code of vowel substitution in this text, see Williamson (1977, pp. 248–249).

  32. For a detailed study of scribal practice with Latin citations in the Vercelli Homilies, see Rudolf (2015).

  33. Cf. “magnan” (Fig. 1, line 3) in Riddle 90. Also, note the square shape of the a in “laude” from The Phoenix (Fig. 3, line 6), confirming there is not a consistent use of the oc form in the Latin words of this passage.

  34. Straight-shafted d is very rare in the Exeter Book. Apart from this case in Riddle 90, Flower mentions one further case in the Exeter Book (Chambers 1933, p. 84), notably in the last line of fol. 46r (“nydgedal,” 934a, from Guthlac); here the d is only slightly slanted in comparison with the regular top-flatted one. Orchard (2018, vol. 2) also notes the presence of a similar d, which can be compared with that found in Riddle 90, in “tidum” (Riddle 39, 2b). However, as noted by Muir (1994, vol. 1, p. 315) in this word the “i is over an erased letter and d is altered from an l.” The upright character of the ascender might therefore respond to a correction.

  35. For further information on scribal mechanical copying in the Exeter Book, see Sisam (1953, pp. 98, 102–103 and 107).

  36. This line scans as a correct hexameter with penthemimeral caesura and synaloepha between “rupi” and “et”: “óbcubuít agnús rup(i) ét//capit víscera lúpi.”

  37. Whitbread (1946, p. 156) considers this a satisfactory interpretation “if we take into account that the lines are in a codex otherwise devoted to Old English poems.”

  38. On the use of accentual meter in the Bern Enigmata, see Norberg (2012, p. 97).

  39. The remainder of Riddle 90 complies with accentual meter, offering three main stresses per half-line. In line 3, the presence of synaloepha in the first hemistich, however, would only allow for two stresses: “Dum stár(em) et mirárem.”

  40. From a quantitative point of view, the rhymes “rupí”/“lúpi” (2) and “stantés”/“tribulántes” (4) are faulty because the ictus falls on a different syllable in each word. For alternative readings with metrically correct rhymes as proposed by several editors, see above in this essay (above, notes 11 and 13). Cf. “máchina”/“monárchia” (17–18) in the excerpt from Aldhelm’s Carmen rhythmicum below.

  41. The number of syllables per half-line is indicated within parentheses at the end of each line.

  42. This reading of line 3, which has been supported by Tupper (1910, p. 63) and Mackie (1934, p. 230), was first put forward by Holthausen (1907, p. 210). Apart from internal rhyme between within each hemistich (“starem et mirarem” and “gloriam magnam”), this line would thus illustrate end-rhyme with the pair “mirarem”/“magnam” with the repetition of /m/ in the final word of the two half-lines. An alternative normalized version of this line is offered by Whitbread (1946, p. 156): “Dum starem et mirarem, uidi gloriam parem.” This interpretation helps maintain medial bisyllabic rhyme although it entails the substitution of “magnam” for “parem,” a modification that is supported by Orchard (2018). Also, see Williamson (1977, p. 388) and Muir (1994, vol. 2, p. 684).

  43. Note that only t in both “starem” and “stantes” would count for alliteration in this case. Cf. the alliterating t in the poem known as “Altus prosator”: “Stantes erimus pavidi/ante tribunal Domini… (207–208). Cited from Blume (1908, stanza no. 18, p. 277). For similar examples in verse by Æthilwald, a disciple of Aldhelm’s, see (Orchard 1994, p. 50).

  44. Cf. Wulfstan’s Narratio: “noctis et astriferas adtraxerat Hesperus umbras” (I.v.923). For further cases of h alliterating with vowels in both Latin and Old English verse, see Orchard (1994, p. 50).

  45. For a study of rhyme in Old English poetry, see Stanley (1988, especially pp. 19–30).

  46. This style was was characterized by “the ostentatious parade of unusual often very arcane and apparently learned vocabulary” (Lapidge 1975, p. 67), frequently deriving from glossaries and entailing words borrowed from Greek, archaisms and neologisms. For the appropriateness of “Hisperic” instead of “hermeneutic,” see Earl (1987, p. 189). For the influence of early Hiberno-Latin poetry on Old English verse, see Herren (1988) and Orchard (1994, pp. 54–60).

  47. For the sake of clarity, I will henceforth distinguish rhyme with bold letters and alliteration with underline.

  48. I am here borrowing Earl’s illustrative citation—as edited by Krapp and van Dobbie (1936)—and translation (1987, p. 190). Emphasis mine.

  49. For further examples from Aldhelm’s Carmen rhythmicum and early medieval hymns, see Earl (1987, pp. 190–191).

  50. For a similar analysis of this excerpt, see Howlett (1995, p. 120).

  51. The edition is from Ehwald (1919, pp. 524–525).

  52. Translation from Lapidge and Rosier (1985). Parenthetical information is also from this work.

  53. Also, note the unorthodox rhyming of “máchina” and “monárchia.” For further examples of rhythmically anomalous rhymes in Aldhelm’s work, see Howlett (1995, p. 132). For the frequent use of imperfect rhyme in Æthilwald’s poetry, see Orchard (1994, p. 41).

  54. Edition and translation by Lapidge (2003, pp. 414–415); emphasis and clarifying information in brackets is mine. See Lapidge’s comments on this excerpt, ibid., pp. 353–354. The passage corresponds to the recommendations that St Swithun makes to a smith, who is urged to fetch Eadsige, one of the canons who refused to adopt the Benedictine Rule and who will eventually find the saint’s tomb.

  55. Maybe this zeal for vowel recurrence occasioned the erroneous manuscript form “dui”; the neighboring occurrence of vowels i and u could thus have caused the copyist’s mistake. The extensive use of rhyme can similarly explain manuscript scribal mispellings in Aldhelm’s Carmen rhythmicum; see Howlett (1995, p. 131).

  56. See Lapidge (2003, pp. 353–354) for more cases.

  57. See Conner (1993, pp. 29–31, 41–42, 81–85 and passim), Drout (2013, pp. 74–82, 105–107, 136–138 and passim), O’Camb (2009) and Salvador(-Bello 2006).

  58. A further piece of evidence of the connection of riddling with Winchester Benedictine circles is provided by the survival of an Old English prose riddle in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius E. xviii (fol. 16v), a mid-eleventh century manuscript from Winchester. For the text of this riddle, see Förster (1905). For further information on this manuscript, see Ker (1957, no. 224, pp. 298–301).

  59. Moreover, Lapidge (2003, p. 389 [note to lines 201–4]) has pointed out the presence of significant verbal echoes from Wulfstan’s Narratio in Exeter Riddle 81 (weathervane). Also, see Salvador-Bello (2015, pp. 414–422) and Orchard (2018, vol. 2) for a comparative analysis of the two texts.

  60. This hypothesis is supported by Fulk (1992, pp. 408–409).

  61. See n. 2 above.

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Acknowledgements

The writing of this article has been funded by a Grant (PP2016-5818) from the Vicerrectorado de Investigación (Universidad de Sevilla), which enabled a research stay at the University of Cambridge (Spring term, 2016). An earlier version was presented as a lecture at the University of Oxford (April 2016), where I benefited from the entlightening comments from Louise Bishop, James Earl, Francis Leneghan, Andy Orchard, Winfried Rudolf and Eric Stanley. I also thank Andy Orchard for kindly sharing his two-volume edition of The Anglo-Saxon riddle tradition (2018) with me. Finally, I should also mention the generous help of Joaquín and Mar Gutiérrez, Rafael J. Pascual, and José Solís de los Santos for their valuable feedback on the metrical aspects in this text.

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Salvador-Bello, M. Exeter Book Riddle 90 under a New Light: A School Drill in Hisperic Robes. Neophilologus 102, 107–123 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-017-9540-x

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