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Anglo-Saxon Literature by John Earle
page 86 of 297 (28%)
of Symphosius, whose work he describes,[60] and whom he seems ambitious
to outstrip. The riddles of Symphosius are uniformly of three hexameter
lines, those of Aldhelm vary in length from four lines to sixteen;
rarely more. The external structure is that of the Epigram, with the
object speaking in the first person. The riddles both of Symphosius and
Aldhelm are so closely identified with the vernacular riddles of the
famous Exeter Song Book, that the reader may be glad of a specimen from
each author. It should be premised that in each collection the subject
stands as a title at the head of each piece. The subject of the
sixteenth in Symphosius is the book-moth:--

DE TINEA.

Litera me pavit, nec quid sit litera novi,
In libris vixi nec sum studiosior inde,
Exedi musas nec adhuc tamen ipse profeci.

I have fed upon literature, yet know not what it is; I have
lived among books, yet am not the more studious for it; I have
devoured the Muses, yet up to the present time I have made no
progress.

One of Aldhelm's riddles is on the Alphabet; and this will be a fit
specimen here, as containing something that is germane to the history of
literature:--

Nos denæ et septem genitæ sine voce sorores,
Sex alias nothas non dicimus adnumerandas,
Nascimur ex ferro rursus ferro moribundæ,
Necnon et volucris pennâ volitantis ad æthram;
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