Arts & Sciences
Riddle XXXIV. A Rake
Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Everyman’s Library, 1926) · From Exeter Book Riddles (selection)
I saw a creature in the cities of men who feeds the cattle; it has many teeth; its beak is useful; it goes pointing downward; it plunders gently and returns home; it searches through the slopes, seeks herbs; always it finds those which are not firm; it leaves the fair ones fixed by their roots, quietly standing in their station, gleaming brightly, blowing and growing.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Codex Note
One of roughly ninety riddles preserved in the Exeter Book; this is one of a further selection translated by R. K. Gordon. The manuscript gives no solutions — the title here follows the translator's own guess (numbering follows Tupper's edition, converted to this archive's Wyatt-based numbering).
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle XXXIV. A Rake.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/42/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle XXXIV. A Rake.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/42/.
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