Riddle Game
The Riddle Game is a guessing game, a contest of wit and skill in which players take turns asking riddles. The player that cannot answer loses. Riddle games show up in both ancient mythology as well as in modern books. One example of a riddle-game in mythology is in a Norse myth, where the god Odin challenges King Heidrek to answer his riddles. This was influential on later literature. In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins to a riddle competition for his life. Bilbo breaks "the ancient rules" of the game but is able to escape with Gollum's magic ring. As happens in the Norse tale, although Bilbo asked more of a simple question than a riddle, by attempting to answer it rather than challenging it Gollum accepted it as a riddle; by accepting it, his loss was binding. (Adapted from Wikipedia; Riddles)
Examples:
D. M.
AELIA LAELIA CRISPIS
NEC VIR NEC MULIER
NEC ANDROGYNA
NEC PUELLA NEC JUVENIS
NEC ANUS NEC CASTA
NEC MERETRIX NEC PUDICA
SED OMNIA
SUBLATA
NEQUE FAME NEQUE FERRO
NEQUE VENENO
SED OMNIBUS
NEC COELO NEC AQUIS
NEC TERRIS
SED UBIQUE JACET
LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCUS
NEC MARITUS NEC AMATOR
NEC NECESSARIUS
NEQUE MOERENS
NEQUE GAUDENS
NEQUE FLENS
HANC NEQUE MOLEM
NEC PYRAMIDEM
NEC SEPULCHRUM
SCIT ET NESCIT
CUI POSUERIT
HOC EST SEPULCHRUM
INTUS CADAVER NON HABENS
HOC EST CADAVER SEPULCHRUM
EXTRA NON HABENS
SED CADAVER IDEM EST
ET SEPULCHRUM SIBI
TO THE GODS OF THE DEAD
Aelia Laelia Crispis,
Not man, nor woman, nor hermaphrodite;
Not girl, nor youth, nor old woman;
Not chaste, nor unchaste, nor modest;
But all [of these]:
Carried off,
Not by hunger, not by sword, nor by poison
But by all [of them]:
Lies,
Not in air, not in earth, not in the waters,
But everywhere.
Lucius Agatho Priscus,
Not her husband, nor her lover, nor her friend;
Not sorrowing, nor rejoicing, nor weeping;
Erecting
This, not a stone-pile, nor a pyramid,
Nor a sepulchre
But all:
Knows, and knows not,
To whom he erects it.
This is a tomb that has no body in it.
This is a body that has no tomb round it.
But body and tomb are the same.
:: The unsolved riddle of Bologna :: The Latin enigmatic inscription illustrated below was discovered, in the sixteenth century, upon a Roman tombstone near Bologna. It has obsessed and exercised the wits of many puzzlers for more than four hundred years to find out its meaning. Mario L. Michelangelo published a 410-page pamphlet on it at Venice, in 1548. In 1683, Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia in his work 'Aelia Laelia Crispis non nata resurgens in expositione legali' enumerates 43 attempted solutions of it. It has been thought to denote: rain, the soul, Niobe, Lot's wife, a child promised in marriage that died before its birth, etc. (source 'Bibliotheca Chemica', John Ferguson) Carl Gustav Jung dedicated a full chapter to this enigma in his 'Mysterium Conjunctionis'. The French writer Gerard de Nerval cited the enigma in two tales: 'Pandora' and 'Le Comte de Saint-Germain'. Until now, no univocal solution to this riddle and its puzzling antitheses has been found.
(Adapted from Ancient Puzzles)
The Sphinx's Riddle:
'What is that animal which in the morning goes on four feet, at noon goes on two, and in the evening goes on three feet?
Directions and Advice:
What is a riddle? A question that hints at the answer but requires ingenuity and logic to figure out.
First of all, think of an object. This will be the answer to your riddle. (for example: fire)
Next you want to think about how you can describe that object. (for example: fire is hot, needs air, etc.)
Once you finish that you need to think of ways to tell your audience this in a less obvious but more interesting way.
Finally, put together all of the hints in a Latin riddle, write neatly on a sheet of white paper and decorate (be careful the decorations don't reveal the answer though!)
Then we will divide into teams and trade riddles. When a team can't answer, the other team gets a point.
Please use at least 2 adjectives: 1 that declines 1st and 2nd declension and one that declines 3rd declension.
Site for advice: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Riddle-About-an-Object
Riddle Game!
objective: to practice describing with adjectives