Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

Another proverbial species of riddles enables further explicating the interpretative problem within the field of textual incompleteness. Each proverb can be defined as a riddle with indefinite solution. Reciprocally, a riddle can be converted into a proverb while rejecting interrogative mode. Such a conversion is enabled due to them both belonging to a class of allegories. It is allegorical properties that mark such aphorisms opening the way of infinite interpretative process. Thus the enigmatic quality as the inherent property of allegory takes here the priority, the proverbs being regarded in this case as the riddles with indefinite solutions. There is still one more feature that unites riddles and proverbs. It goes about periphrastic means that occupy leading place in the both of them. The riddles show the perspectives of renaming procedures so that the opportunities for summarizing extended narratives develop. Therefore there are grounds for ascribing problematic mode to proverbs as the initial point of their possible comparison to riddles as the specialized form of enigmatic utterances. Proverbs suggest multitude of interpretative possibilities comparable to the searches for the solution of a riddle so that they are reciprocal inversions⁶⁴⁴. Respectively one can say of the definite lacunas that make a distinctive feature of a riddle in opposite to lacunas’ indefiniteness of proverbs. The essence of riddles is seen in the contradiction between the mentioned attribute and the option of the sets off possible objects compatible with it. Therefore there are generally several admissible solutions whereas proverb retains ambiguity of virtual interpretations. In particular there are often such attributes implied as those of constant or obligatory epithets. Therefore the property of being inalienable attribute comes into play⁶⁴⁵. For instance on opposite to “a man with moustache” one can’t say “*a man with eyes”, the antonym being “blind” as that of inalienable attribute; one could say “a one-eyed man” in opposite to the inalienable case of “*a two-eyed man”. Then the riddle’s task turns to be the problem of an object’s identification. For instance the enumeration of attributes as in <«до того она жирна, даже шея не видна»> ‘she is so fat that even her neck is invisible’ [Сукач, 1993, 113] presupposes the answer “pig”.

Enigmatic verve of proverbial texts appears as the immediate consequence of their being reversible with the riddles. In its turn the semantic polyvalence of proverbial expressions that gives reasons for them becoming allegorical tropes is the consequence of the semantic transitions. But the very transitions as the potential of the inner forms of words are evoked with immanent reticence peculiar to each idiom due to its semantic incompleteness, the lack of definite meaning that is substituted with latent sense and of indefiniteness as the essential idiomatic quality. In other words idioms always wear an enigmatic garment that indicates the very presence of hidden sense.

Henceforth a question ensues as to the relation of proverbs to riddles that belong to the species of allegory. In this respect one could attract attention to the cases of reversibility of proverbs in riddles and vice versa. One can regard riddles in many cases as a peculiar kind of proverbs with specialized and narrowed meaning that creates a separate class of expressions. It is also to bear in mind that each riddle can become proverb and vice versa. For instance, a very widely known riddle that presents “scattered grains” (the solution being nocturnal sky with stars) can easily be compared with the proverb about “sown seeds” that means the preparations for the future; another image from the riddle designating nut has an outlook of a condition “To break a pot before eating the porridge” that is almost identical with the proverb “Before frying the scrambled eggs one has to break them”; such a riddle as “Never the twins will meet” (with eyes as the solution) has become proverbial expressions used as a famous poetic line by R. Kipling (with preceding line “Oh, West is the West and East is the East …”). In its turn, the proverb “The more the merrier” implies also its treatment as a riddle with the solution dullness, stupid speeches or something of the kind (bearing in mind the unmotivated laugh as e the symptom of mental degradation). Besides, proverbs can be used as nicknames (as in V. Hugo’s l’homme – qui - rit “person – that - laughs” designating actually cripples mutilated with the aim of entertaining mob), and in this case they presuppose the existence of the respective experience to be understood correctly.

The existence of the so called solution of a riddle does presuppose a latent name to be guessed as a standard answer to a question of a catechism. The riddle is in this respect a periphrastic description of this name to be guessed. Meanwhile such a name can be not a single one. In such cases one deals with an evanescent concept designated with a riddle. To demonstrate such a plurality of solutions let’s quote a poetic riddle by W. Cowper chosen as the epigraph to the 15-th chapter of F. Cooper’s “The Pathfinder”: “What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, / That learning is too proud to gather up; / But which the poor and the despised of all / Seek and obtain and often find unsought? / Tell me – and I will tell you what is truth”. One can add that “truth” is not the only possible answer to the question put by the poet: there are also such notions as “justice” that would meet the represented periphrastic description. It is to underline here that it is not merely the real objects that riddles describe as the “lines” of a catechism. Rather, it goes about the designation of magic agents or of the categories of wondrous phenomena. The contents of riddles betray the traces of archaic beliefs and imagery thus rendering fragments of destroyed mythological systems.

One would suggest a conjecture as to the enigmatic features that proverbs possess. Each proverbial expression can be said to be a riddle though not each of them has its appropriate solution. It is the semantic transitions inherent in each proverbial expression that entails the opportunity of confusion in dealing with the puzzle of deciphering the figurative meaning. The constant dissention between literary and derivative meanings always implies the latent risk of misunderstanding.

To say it in another way, there is an enigmatic mode of utterance (according to St. Augustine’s statement per speculum in aenigma) as an underlying foundation of proverbial allegories. In this respect riddles in proper sense create a special subgroup of proverbs with narrowed interpretative field. The chain of relative interpretations provoked in a riddle has its sources in the very essence of proverbial locution as such. This locution always is a figure of reticence and remains with a hint of reservation. The presence of unexpressed contents causes the existence of a mystery to be felt behind, and it is this mysterious latency that propels still further interpretative efforts of those trying to comprehend it in their own way. It is immanent incompleteness that determines proverbial contents, semantic transitions as well as the interpretative manifolds being its consequences.

One does easily find enigmatic and mysterious incompleteness and reticence in such plain and usual proverb as “promises are like piecrust, made to be broken”. Together with its principal meaning of warning before too credulous mode of behavior it enables also the interpretation of expressing a cynic attitude indulging in breaking promises. Besides, “piecrust” can also be eaten and not broken, not to say about the nature of “crust” as a surface that protects and hides at the same time more essential things. Thus a series of open interpretational possibilities arises that accompanies this simple utterance.

These generic interpretative subdivisions come to the necessity of involving non-verbal forces of the visual representation of images. The coexistence of literal (direct) and figurative (derivative) meanings within a proverbial text entails the following consequences. It is obvious that a proverb must be comprehensible so that its derivative sense would not be perceived literally. In this respect proverbial expressions belong to the class of “common places” (loci communi) where derivation is codified as a generally acknowledged convention. These conventions are based upon prototypes that could be identified as the already mentioned class of the so called emblems. The picture presented in an emblem contains an image that presents a certain puzzle or riddle to be solved. At the same time such a solution is already given beforehand preponderantly. Thus the balances symbolize the judicial power especially kept in the hand of a blindfolded woman as its personification called Themis. In the same way bridle designates rule or government, a fortress encircled with water means prudence, the hands that tighten a knot denote discord. Such derivative convenient meanings are attributed to animals, plants, flowers (a lily denotes a hidden treasure; a nightingale serves as the symbol of night watch). A special branch of such explications belongs to the field of heraldry. Such an “alphabet” of tropes creates the prototype for folklore riddles. Here the description of an enigmatic picture covers the signified object. In riddles this description turns to circumlocution and is given with periphrastic means. Being interpreted as emblems proverbial enunciations “forget” their verbal substance and “remind” the visualized image. Thus one can say of verbal amnesia & visual anamnesis so that the existence of the mentioned mnemonic pictograms is presupposed as the general property of proverbs and a singularity of some tribes.

The codification of such conventions presents them in the form of catechism so that questions (riddles, emblems) and responses are given alternatively. Such texts belonged to one of the most beloved “folk books” of the Mediaeval Ages that come back to the Hellenistic treatise “Hieroglyphics” by Horapollo (III c.)⁶⁴⁶. In the same way the corpse of riddles also makes up a catechism that gives the map of a naïve worldview. It can be verified also with the treatment of emblems in the baroque treatises as the riddles⁶⁴⁷. Each picture is perceived as a riddle concealing a mystery behind the visible shell of things which has to be disclosed and deciphered⁶⁴⁸. The visible world presents only the shades of the essences, that is why these shades are not only enigmatic as the surface of mysteries and wonders, they are also mutable. Each nomination of the visible things only initiates the infinite process of interpretation⁶⁴⁹. Both the corpse of emblems and that of riddles presuppose the possession of the experience of commonplaces necessary for a given cultural code. For instance it is necessary to know that a snake gnawing its own tail means eternity, that an oyster’s mussel designates self-cognition, an elephant with the raised trunk before the sunrise is the symbol of piety and the cliff in the storming sea means faith. Each emblem gives a circumlocution of the presumed solution to be guessed⁶⁵⁰.

One of the specimens of the emblematic type of texts is demonstrated in such a monument of the German folk books as the famous Sebastian Brant’s “The ship of the fools” (1494) where the verses actually explain the enigmatic pictures. For instance the image of “the fool” (marked with a hood with bells) pointing to the heaven with stars upon the background of landscape is the designation for ‘PREJUDICE’ in the verse “On the interpretation of stars”. The verse “On a dull exchange” is exenplifieed with the image of the fool who leads an ass and communicates with a mucician keeping a bagpipe: it is meant here that a musical instrument as the symbol of VANITY is to be taken in an exchange of a profitable pack aninmal. For the verse “On the termination of power” the image of ther fortune’s wheel with the fool, an ass and a unicorn attached to it, and gthe wheel is rotated with a forefinger of an arm appearing from the clouds (as the finger of providence) [Brant, 1986, 182, 262, 156].

It is evident that such pictures represent the prototypes of the concepts that are periphrastically described with the respective verses. One could also call them archetypes in Jungian sense as they combine visual and verbal components. Meanwhile it is just the prototypical nature of emblems that determines its contradictions. Incompleteness of utterances is caused with the prototype itself that always presents only a part of the world and implies reticence to be removed and overcome in periphrastic descriptions and amplifications that replete the “loopholes” with words⁶⁵¹. The same situation was to be found in the baroque heraldry where codification of tropes arises⁶⁵². All it gives grounds for the conclusion that the derivation of figurative meanings within proverbs and riddles belongs to their immanent constant and absolute properties independent upon separate relative interpretations. This property reflects the incompleteness of proverbial idioms as their fundamental quality of semantic transitiveness. In this respect the existence of solution for a riddle is only the result of the specialization of such interpretative and transient mode of existence proper to idiom. For instance, the riddle «четыре брата под одной шляпой» [Садовников, № 238] (four brothers under one cap) nay designate both “table” (“brothers” as “legs”) and “house” (those as “corners”), but the multitude of solutions is not still closed: it can include also “car” (“brothers” as “wheels”) or something other. Thus the solution of a riddle becomes an evasive concept. This evasiveness can be demonstrated very persuasively at the example cited by K. Chukovski in his monograph on Nekrasov. There is the image of a nocturnal firmament described as the scattered peas that defines the enumeration of the features of stars. Meanwhile this image has been attested in V. Dahl’s collection with two solutions: both “stars” and “hail”. This well known folklore image acquires in the poets lines also literal deciphering⁶⁵³. From such an approach to riddles a conclusion follows: if peas = stars = hail, then it lacks a defined concept! From indefiniteness follows arbitrariness! It remains only the periphrastic description of something unknown. Riddle designates a problem to be solved irrespective to this solution.

It is because the periphrastic description in a riddle represents only the prototype of the sought concept that it doesn’t give its single definition. Only with the specialization of meaning and with narrowing interpretation (in particular through conventional conditions) that this concept can become found and named. Here a reticence can become an effective enigmatic device. An interesting verification here one can find in the Chinese folklore in the so called interrupted utterances that are regarded as a particular kind of riddles⁶⁵⁴. The fact that the reticence is marked with predictability was just the ground for the formation of the Chinese interrupted sentences where the beginning already generated the expectation of the conclusion. For instance such is the proverb about the confines of cognition: ren₂ xin₁ ge₂ du₄ pi₂ – shi₂ bu₄ tou₄ (literally ‘the conscience (can) bar a stomach – (but) doesn’t know all’ (indices designate accents). The answer (continuation) is here predictable as well as the solution of a riddle. It is just the incomplete and abrupt initial part that includes trope whereas the complementing phrase elucidates its meaning⁶⁵⁵. Similar types of riddles are to encounter in other languages’ world’s pictures beside that of Chinese: such are the phrases that are understood at the hint as in the rhetorical figure of reticence. In its turn reticence may be generalized as the particular case of incompleteness that includes both the abrupt outlook of text and the existence of latent meaning. The incompleteness of any periphrastic description reflects its nature that comes back to taboo. This origin can be recognized in particular in the fact that a lot of riddles is built as a negative definition (definitio per negatio) through an enumeration of the absent properties. A boat is then defined as something moving without hands, without legs, without tracks.

The prototypical nature, incompleteness, reticence of allegorical locutions (both of proverbs and riddles) come back to taboo and the subsequent substitutions of primary nominations with periphrastic descriptions. This common property entails the mutual reversibility of proverbs and riddles. Thus a Byelorussian riddle «не разбив горшка, не съешь каши» (one can’t eat porridge without breaking a pot) with the solution ‘nut’ [Грынблат et al., 2004, № 455] coincides with the English proverb «one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs»; «через межу брат брата не видит» (solution ‘eyes’) is comparable with the adage «под носом не замечать». The riddle for “spoons and plate” «всі йдуть з колами до однієї ями» ‘all go with their rings to a pit’ can be interpreted also as the proverb on the vanity of existence when the pit could be deciphered as a grave and rings be taken in their literal meaning; the riddle about bread «прийде до стайні без шкіри, а вертає з шкірою» ‘it has entered the barn without skin and exited with the skin’ resembles the proverb concerning commerce «кому на відбуток, а мені на прибуток» ‘for somebody to departure, for me to profit’. Thus the conversion of riddles and proverbs is quite realizable and depends upon interpretative intentions.

The distinction of the riddles from the proverbs is determined with the specialization of their meanings. The ultimate limit for this process can become a proper name as the solution of riddles used as nickname. Such are for instance the nicknames chosen for the heroes of V. Hugo’s “The Ninety Third Year” (Part 3, Book 4, Chapter 2): Gouge-le-Bruant (maid - a yellow binting) as the nickname for Imanus, Chante-en-Hiver (song in winter), Brin-d’Amour (piece of love) etc. It is this concentration of the point at the singular object to be guessed and named that allows developing extent tests of detailed descriptions that confines the variability of answers. A proverb or a separate idiom turns to a riddle with a definite solution when the field of its interpretation becomes ultimately narrowed. It takes very often place in satirical texts: «потеряла я колечко» is the inscription in the known cartoon on the Hitler’s army besieged at Stalingrad; «волки сыты и овцы целы» means roguery; «милые бьются – только любятся» refers to quarrels with the aim of deceiving the observer.

If a proverb initiates the process of interpretation the riddle confines and restricts it with the implied (and given only as the virtual solution) though absent concept⁶⁵⁶. It is why the fragments, the separated idioms of widely known proverbial expressions acquire riddles’ properties and behave as the commonplaces in the manner of lupus in fabula: «о волке примолвка, а он тут как тут = про вовка промовка, а він вже поруч» (one talks of a wolf, and it appears). Such are in particular the periphrastic descriptions that have become commonplaces: a known example one can find in Homer’s circumlocutions that imply a definite answer: the death is signified with such locutions as to be covered with an embankment, to sink into soil, to be eaten with beasts, to become water and soil, to be swallowed with the earth’s breath [Сахарный, 1957, 298]. In such cases it is fragmentation that provides conditions for transforming proverb into a riddle.

The most habitual idiom may easily become a riddle as its contents are irreducible to its components: соль земли (the soil’s salt) is not a mineral or an ore extracted from a mine; what is written on the forehead (написано на лбу) is not readable; it is not only driver who should be cautious at the bends (быть осторожней на поворотах); sea at a knee (море по колено) doesn’t presume the existence of a ford over a sea and when one commits the burning of boats or bridges (сожжение кораблей мостов) it isn’t connected with fire. Idioms of the kind appear because they imply a definite interpretation and the solution which is known as a hint for those competent in the respective experience. For instance oil in the head in Polish has nothing to do with hairdressing and implies wit whereas vegetables in the head presume whim and not any hint to a wreath. In its turn the specialization enables also the possibility for an idiom to turn to a “free’ collocation. Transformation of the opposite direction that is of free locutions to idioms takes place within the limits of a writer’s idiolect when they refer to a very peculiar or a unique phenomenon. Such properties demonstrate constant epithets as the possible substitutes for the name of this phenomenon.

A riddle and a metaphor (to remind Aristotelian definition of a riddle as a primary source of metaphor) can overlap with the class of paradoxes and be put in contraposition to tautology (represented, for example, with such figurae etymologicae as вітер віє). It is also to be marked anyhow that these cases do not still prevail. Thus instead of a known (and criticized) opposition metaphor / metonymy an alternative approach seems to be suggested where paradoxes and tautologies are to be regarded as polar positions, the middle place being occupied with metonymy as the form of circumlocution. In its turn it is here to remind also that paradoxes are the antinomies inherently present within the premises of tautologies and thus disclosing their inner conflict.

This game with contradictions with paradoxical juxtapositions is a commonplace of riddles: one can cite the examples as «грамоти не знаю, а цілий вік пишу» ‘I’m illiterate but I’m writing constantly’ (a pencil), «двоє поросят, а чотири хвостики» ‘two pigs and four tails’ (shoes). If proverbs demonstrate paradoxical universal compatibility of attributes it is the marked contradiction of attributes that constitutes the distinctive generic property of riddles. A very peculiar paradox that is attested in literature is to be found in the motif MOTHER BRINGING FORTH FATHER attested for instance as the riddle with the answer “soil & grain” [Страпарола, 353]. An analogous sample «родить мати дівку, а дівка матір» [Березовський, 246] ‘mother brings forth daughter and daughter brings forth mother’ has the answer “water & ice”. Meanwhile this motif refers to the image of the Godmother, and it is with these references that it was used in Polish baroque poetry. The riddle «Временами рассеваю – временами собираю, Сам сыт бываю и других кормлю» ‘sometimes I disperse and sometimes I gather, I remain replete and nourish the others’ (answer ‘the ploughman’) [Садовников, № 1255] refers also to the images of Ecclesiastes. The motif MEETING’S IMPOSSIBILITY is represented in the riddle about “eyes” «Два братца через грядку смотрят, да не сойдутся» [Садовников, № 1836] ‘two brothers look through a bed and can’t meet’ has also the correlate in a Far Eastern myth on the celestial female Weaver and Herdsman identified with the stars of Vega and Altair [Малявин, 1989, 73].

Such motifs with paradoxical attributes are also periphrastic descriptions of the objects to be guessed. Thus the motif MOUNT OF MEAT is the circumlocution for a horse in the Byelorussian riddle «лезу, лезу, на мясную гору улезу» ‘I climb over a mount of meat’ [Грынблат, Гурскі, 1048]. Here one can find a metonymy of “mount” for the designation of “height” (concrete for abstract) as well as the metaphor of height for horse (with the omitted middle member of comparison). Such circumlocutions usually fix the paradoxical contradiction. It entails in its turn the use of negative definitions typical for riddles. For instance stone is described as GROWING WITHOUT ROOT, sun as BURNING WITHOUT FLAME, water as BUYYING WITHOUT WIND [Березовський, 63, 2634; Грынблат, Гурскі, 100-101; Folfasinski, 885, 1221]; both shade and ray are conceived as INCAPABLE OF BEING CARRIED AWAY [Грынблат, Гурскі, 296-298; Березовський, 123, 3042]; a boat is represented as MOVING WITHOUT TRACKS [Грынблат, Гурскі, 2864 –2867, 2869-2874, 2876-2877, Садовников, 1577]; the process of reading is conceived as UNHARMED CONSUMPTION resonant to the Baroque symbol INFLAMMATUR burning without destruction; the image of DEATH is represented as INEVITABLE TREE. A very eloquent is the comparison of sun with a tree [Березовський, 67, Грынблат, Гурскі, 15] that correlates with the Far Eastern character “sun at a tree” designating “EAST”. The representation of writing as the dispersion of black grains over a white field correlates with the etymology of he word LETTER that designated primarily dispersed powder. Oven is represented as DEVOURER OF WOOD, female mammilla is depicted as NOURISHING THE UNIVERSE [Грынблат, Гурскі, 1719 – 1723, 2978-2981; Березовський, 1361]. Besides, it is to stress the adversative relations (expressed with the exclusive BUT) that prevail in such depictions. Such are WHITE BUT NOT SUGAR for snow, AIMING BUT NOT ATTAINING for day and night, floor and ceiling [Березовський, 218, 250, Грынблат, Гурскі, 2787 - 2792, 2798 - 2804]. One can say of the apophatic style of meditation attested with such riddles.

A simple separation or fragmentation of a periphrastic description or a single idiom becomes the decisive force of turning it into a riddle that implies solution or into a hint referring to a known context. Such locutions become catchwords behaving as the virtual proverbial expressions. It is to be traced in the use of widespread quotations that behave like the utterances with contracted endings to designate the well known common things. For instance «все смешавшееся в доме» refers to the second sentence of the canonic text of “Ann Karenin”, «гордо реющий» presumes a hint to Gorky’s Stormy Petrel, «река времен» refers to the the image of Lethe used in the verse of Derzhavin. Thus the reciprocal transformations of proverbs and riddles ensue from the very nature of allegorical periphrastic descriptions, the riddles being their extreme zone of specialized interpretations. These descriptions aim at representing latent and unknown concepts through the listing structures, at the same time for the riddles these sought concepts are regarded as implied though not found. If the proverbs initiate the process of interpretation due to their immanent incompleteness and their multiplied semantic transitions, the riddles make the field of searches narrower due to the conventionally assumed solution that can be lost while passing over the limits of the admitted contexts.

2.1.6. Perspective and Aspect within Textual Compression