As if I didn’t have too much to do already, I translated two more Exeter Book Riddles and placed them on the “Shorter Poems” page. These ones are the famous “One-Eyed Garlic Peddler” (#86) and the equally-notable “Key” (#44) riddles. I have long been curious about the strange first riddle of the Exeter Book sequence (or is it the first 3 riddles?), which strike me not so much as an actual riddle (despite their repeated “Say what I am” refrain) than as an extended prosopopoeia of a natural phenomenon. The problem is that there is not a lot of the playful misdirection of the other riddles, just vigorous statements of things that are (or were believed to be). I’ll know more as I finish translating it (or them). Keep an eye out for that to be finished soon.

More Solomon and Saturn was posted today as well, getting well into the enigmatic second dialogue, with much more confident results.

I also totted up the lines for the Metres of Boethius, and in total they come to some 1700-odd lines, which makes that poem just about equal to Andreas in length. That’s a major work, and it gets so little attention from anybody. Hopefully turning to translate those poems will help bring their qualities into a greater light.

That is all…