Still sorting through lots of old books that we and the kids accumulated over the years. A few days ago, I ran across a book of riddles that one of the kids must have had years ago, and as luck, or fate, would have it it was on top of Homer’s Odyssey. That was probably required reading for one or both of our kids in school. I thought it was curious that these books happened to be together.
I don’t know if you remember, but there is very little known about Homer, the (supposed) author of the two epic poems (The Iliad and the Odyssey) other than he was a Greek poet and he wrote about heroes who fought battles, had amazing adventures and struggled with gods.
Homer’s Odyssey is about a king’s long journey home after the Trojan War and the masters, magic, and seductive enchantresses he faced. But the fact that the two books were stacked together was curious to me because legend has it that Homer killed himself in frustration because he couldn’t answer a simple riddle. The riddle in question was spoken by Greek fishermen: “What we caught we threw away. What we didn’t catch, we kept.” According to the story, Homer couldn’t figure it out, and it drove him to suicide. The story might not be true, but apparently the ancient Greeks were really fascinated by riddles. The word comes from a Greek root meaning “to give advice.”
After doing a little checking, I found that riddles haven’t always been for children — a lot of ancient cultures took their riddles very seriously. Apparently the Babylonians believed that riddles could teach. The oldest riddles that have been found were preserved on an ancient Babylonian clay tablet that probably served as a schoolbook.
Riddles also appear in the Islamic Koran, the Indian Vedas, and the ancient oral traditions of most cultures. Something like a riddle — koans — is used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provide enlightenment. An example is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is no logical answer to a koan. It’s just supposed to open up your mind.
I suppose the most most famous riddle in the world is “Why did the chicken cross the road ?” But one that’s pretty famous is the Riddle of the Sphinx. The Sphinx was a dangerous creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. She prowled the countryside looking for trouble. She asked the same riddle of every human she met and if you couldn’t answer the riddle, she ate you. What was the riddle? “What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet in midday, and three feet in the evening?” Now — here’s the interesting part of the story….The only person who answered the riddle correctly was Oedipus Rex, the king who married his mother (but he didn’t know she was his mother) and poked his own eyes out when he found out. As for the Sphinx, once somebody answered correctly, she killed herself. A big relief for a lot of people, I imagine.
Today we think of riddles mostly for children, but obviously that hasn’t always been the case. I guess it’s a good thing our minds don’t work in the same way the ancients’ did.
In case you haven’t been able to come up with the answers to the riddles, here they are:
The answer to the riddle that stumped Homer — What did the fishermen keep? Lice, which they already had. The Riddle of the Sphinx — the answer is “a man” — who crawls at the beginning of life, walks upright in mid-life, and walks with a cane in old age.
You’re welcome.
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