Thank you for allowing me to join the HEL group virtually through this blog. I hope to meet you in person this semester as I return to campus after time on leave. I’ve been preparing to teach an MA-level survey of medieval to renaissance literature -- only one week before we start now! So I’ve been thinking about the course’s starting point of Old English and in particular the ‘Franks’ casket, since it’s featured on the front cover of one of the books we’re using.
To see images and read more about this 8th-century box, see the British Museum site:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/t/the_franks_casket.aspx
As the site explains, on the front panel of this box, a riddle is spelled out in a runic inscription which surrounds the images (mythic Wayland juxtaposed with Christian nativity, interesting). The site gives a translation of the riddle; in more typical Old English characters, it reads something like this: “fisc . flodu . ahof on fergenberig warþ ga:sric grorn þær he on greut giswom.” The answer (“hronæs ban”) is also spelled out in the runes that run up the left-hand side, but the material fashioning of the box means you literally see the answer before you have a chance to ‘see’ the answer (figuratively) or even finish reading the question. I am fascinated by Old English riddles because most people do not think of riddles as literature and because riddles are in fact as difficult to define as literature itself. (My favorite way to define a riddle is a riddle: ‘when you do not know what it is, then it is. when you know what it is, it is not’.) I also deeply enjoy thinking about how the materials we use to fashion texts impact what the text means to us; I can hardly wait to teach an honors course on the subject of material texts next semester!
But I digress... Why do I think the inscription on the Franks casket is especially interesting in terms of HEL? Well, one piece of information not given on the British Museum website, but clear to anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the runic alphabet, the futhorc, is that the bottom line of the inscription is written right to left with reversed runes. It is therefore only easily legible when viewed in a mirror. (Wikipedia’s entry featuring the futhorc currently has a link to the Franks casket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_runes ). No one has yet offered an entirely convincing explanation of why the riddle was crafted this way, though it certainly adds to the puzzle. And it’s made me start to ponder mirror writing in relation to the history of the English alphabet... Should mirror-reversed letters be considered part of the alphabet since English users can (with some effort/aids) read and write using these? What does this group think? Would a study of mirror writing from the Franks casket to today turn up any interesting continuity? Would it be part of the HEL? What about a history of English writing on bone? I know the whalebone stays that shaped Elizabethan corsets were an especially popular place for inscriptions of erotic poetry... does anyone know of other interesting instances?
This is great Dr. K! Thanks so much for the thought-provoking post. The questions you ask about mirror and bone writing are fascinating, not just in terms of practical use and material contexts, but also because they point to premodern understandings about what writing meant. As you know, Dr. K, many medieval Latin works were titled or described as a "mirror" or "speculum" or "imago," which suggests that they are meant to be representations or refractions of truth, knowledge. Of course most medieval readers believed that their access to truth, especially divine knowledge, was only available via a glass darkly. Riddles also offer some "truth" but access to it is elusive. Last fall I spent a class talking about Old English riddles. One of my favorites has always been Exeter riddle 42 (http://www2.kenyon.edu/AngloSaxonRiddles/Riddles/Riddle42.htm). For those of you unfamiliar with this, be sure to check out the "answer." If you thought it was something else, it must be your dirty mind!
ReplyDeleteI have a question about Old English riddles. It seems to me that riddles can have more than one solution so who is to say that it is solved or not? As for some that are considered uncertain such as 91,
ReplyDelete(http://www2.kenyon.edu/AngloSaxonRiddles/Riddles/Riddle91.htm)if I were to come up with an answer and consider it certain would I have then solved the riddle? Can a riddle only be solved when a person agrees with the solution?
Aha, Alex, your reference to allusive truths using the phrase 'a glass darkly' reflects the massive influence on the history of the English language exercised by the King James Bible, which will incidentally celebrate its 400th anniversary next year.
ReplyDeleteSee http://www.kingjamesbibletrust.org/
That important book does render St. Paul's differentiation of earthly knowledge from future heavenly knowledge with the oft quoted phrase "Now we see through a glass, darkely: but then we see face to face" (I Corinthians XIII:12), leading to many scholarly footnotes on the less than perfect quality of early mirrors. But this translation omits a phrase that would have been part of the verse for any medieval scholar familiar with the Latin (Vulgate) translation: "Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate: tunc facies ad faciem" [We see now through a mirror !within a riddle!: then face to face.] Emphasizing exclamation marks are my addition, of course.
Trina, your question is very important since it points us straight at the social role of riddles as a form of play that forces us into dialogue. Scholars who claim to have a 'solution' for the more obscure riddles, or even just to have determined where the words begin and end, probably do hope to win the agreement of others. But here's another question for you: Can a riddle only be literature when the 'solution' is ambiguous, or, in other words, when there is more than one perspective on the answer, even if within a single brain? I'm thinking now of the ending of David Lodge's novel, Small World, when the most respected literary critics are asked "What follows if everybody agrees with you?" by the 'questing' figure, Persse. I quote here the exchange between the leading critic and the quester, which seems especially fitting, since it concerns social play and since I myself am offering you a question in lieu of an answer: "'You imply, of course, that what matters in the field of critical practice is not truth but difference. If everybody were convinced by your arguments, they would have to do the same as you and then there would be no satisfaction in doing it. To win is to lose the game. Am I right?' 'It sounds plausible,' said Persse from the floor. 'I don't have an answer myself, just the question.'"
Trina, welcome to the blog! Your question about answering riddles reminds me of one of the most famous of all, the riddle of the Sphinx. In that case, only one answer counts and luckily Oedipus gets it right. However, the numerous riddles that are spoken by characters in Sophocles' play, especially Tiresias, are completely lost on Oedipus (or I should say, he answers them in a way that suits his sensibilities!). And I think Dr. K's response, by recasting riddle solving as literary interpretation, is helpful. After all, we often read literature according to own sensibilities. We can imagine that Riddle 42 is a key for a certain kind of reader, but we can't deny that another answer is entirely plausible! And to turn to the David Lodge example, I can't help but think about the grail story on which this exchange is based. In Chretien's text, the "answer" or solution is actually the question, "Whom does the grail serve?" And the answer to this question is itself ambiguous, since it could be literal or metaphorical. On the one hand, the "graal" serves the ailing grail king. On the other, the question itself reflects an ethic of knightly service and courtesy. Which is the more important answer? I even created a course blog years ago based on this question: http://servoit.blogspot.com/! And to get back to Persse's question, what happens if everyone figures it out? Sorry to add more questions than answers, but we are literary questers after all!
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, thanks Dr. K for the Vulgate "per speculum in aenigmate"! I wasn't aware of this, but I find it fascinating.