for he who held me of yore in thrall
denies me that bliss. I must therefore enjoy
single, alone, the wealth of heroes.
Often foolish in my finery I enrage a woman,
diminish her desire; her tongue abuses me;
she hits me with her hands, reviles me with words,
intones a curse. I like not this contest.…
The solution is certainly, at first, a Sword, as is doubtless intentionally obvious. Then about midway the sword seems to be personified and obscurities set in. The piece is thus one half a transparent riddle and then a kind of heroic lay in the best tradition, in which the sword speaks as a follower who has somehow killed a friend of his master (or so I understand it) and is banished. He cannot marry, but he involves himself with a scolding woman. There is some disorder in the manuscript, the gatherings indicating the loss of a whole folio, which contained the conclusion of this riddle and perhaps other riddles. Compare 41 (K-D 60).
- s52 ##
52 (K-D 17)
| The manuscript has above this the rune for B, either for Burg, ‘town,’ or for Ballista. If the former, the answer is a Town defended by its inhabitants. Above the rune for B, moreover, is the rune for L, and this points to Ballista, an engine for throwing missiles, as the solution, favored by recent editors. Since both answers would fit, the ambiguity is probably intentional, to promote argument. |
