when that which filled it flew from its eye.
It does not always die when it has to give
what is in it to another. But there comes again
reward to its bosom. Its bloom returns.
It creates a son; it is its own father.
The answer is Bellows, but the second meaning is unmistakable. The seventeenth-century play on the word “die” has thus a long history. Symphosius 73 begins with an interesting, and innocent, parallel:
- Non ego continuo morior, cum spiritus exit;
Nam redit assidue, quamvis et saepe recedit.
- s81 ##
81 (K-D 87)
I saw a marvelous thing; it had a big belly
mightily swollen. A servant followed it,
powerful and strong of hand. Great I thought him,
a goodly warrior. He seized hold at once,
with heaven’s tooth . . . .
blew in its eye. It barked,
weakened willingly; would none the less
. . . . . . . .
The rest is lacking. This looks like a variant of the preceding riddle. “Heaven’s tooth,” the bite of the wind, has been compared with As You Like It II, vii, l. 177.
